


Assigned (100 Element Prompts)

by lost_spook



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Elemental Weirdness, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Multi, Telepathy, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Tropes, being fannish about the periodic table
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-11-14 21:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 38
Words: 37,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of various <i>Sapphire & Steel</i> ficlets/short fics  written for a table of 100 fanfic cliche prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Runaway (Cerium, Copper)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts generated using this lovely [random generator](http://zombierom.com/genremixer/#). All ficlets should hopefully make sense as individual scenes (although for only a given value of "sense" - this is Sapphire and Steel, after all). 
> 
> [Full list of prompts](http://lost-spook.livejournal.com/266330.html#cutid1).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cerium hasn’t run away; something’s run away with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 42: Cerium & Copper - Ran away to join the circus & Vampires. (This occurs c.1930s (so it’s not a modern circus). The vampires are… not really present, or only in a vague metaphorical sense. Hopefully, it will be accessible as a weird S&S scene.)

***

Cerium sits on a wooden seat, the only visitor in the otherwise empty circus tent. In the ring below, the tightrope walker practices his act, and she watches.

“You didn’t return with the others. They wondered if you… if you had tried to leave.”

The Big Top seems darker suddenly, but maybe it’s only the shadow cast over her by the man who is now sitting beside her. She’s never thought of Copper as a threat before. She’s never managed to be as wary of her colleagues as they often seem to be of her, and of each other.

“No, no that,” she says. She remains looking at the man walking along the wire; she hasn’t glanced aside at Copper yet. “It wasn’t that. I…” Her voice trails away, for she doesn’t understand it herself, not in a way she knows how to express or explain. It’s not this place. She can sense darker undercurrents here that she doesn’t want to explore, some of those very human things: there’s a constant sense of fear, or pressure; there’s a bright surface and a more mundane reality underneath – and then there are the animals. She saw lions and tigers when she made her way in here. Animals in captivity. She shivers inside herself at the thought. She doesn’t like that.

Copper is still waiting for her to continue.

 _I came here_ , she says, for want of anything better. _I didn’t leave._

“Ah.” Copper turns on the seat beside her, and she knows he’s looking at her, studying her face. “I think I understand. Time forced an identity on you? Or you took one yourself to deceive it.”

Cerium nods. _I didn’t know it would be like that. She wanted… She wanted more than she had. So strongly… I didn’t know._

“Yes,” says Copper, although lightly, without emphasis. “It’s easier for some of us than others, it seems.”

She finally turns her head to look at him. “I do like them,” she says, with a sudden, characteristic side-step that some of her other colleagues find worrying. “Humans. Perhaps that’s why. It was only that I didn’t want… I didn’t want for both of us to be left in the dark. It’s a long wait between assignments.”

“Is it?”

“Not for you,” she says, although she’s matter of fact, with no trace of bitterness. “I – _she_ – wanted to see things. To have freedom and colour and life. She wanted to start here. I didn’t see why she shouldn’t.”

Copper says nothing. He waits calmly, watching her. In the centre, away from them, the tightrope walker reaches the other end of the wire.

Cerium closes her eyes. There are… tears. She hasn’t wept before. The sensation is curious; she thinks she rather likes it.

Copper leans across and, even with her eyes closed, she knows he’s wearing that so-slight smile on his face, and he takes her head in both his hands and kisses her on the forehead. It’s a dispassionate but deliberate gesture; a connection to displace the other.

She lets go of the alien emotions, feels them falling away with the tears.

“It won’t be that long,” says Copper, as she opens her eyes again. “You are useful. They know that. They won’t spare you, not when you’re needed.”

Cerium leans back, and tilts her head to one side before smiling, fully herself again. “Yes. I didn’t… It wasn’t…” 

“I know.” 

And they fade away together, while she’s still wondering why the humans should think so much of running away to join the circus. She doesn’t see why: there’s no freedom here, only yet more cages.


	2. Angles of Improbability (Silver/Diamond)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diamond has never liked Silver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 61: Silver & Diamond – schmoop & confession

“Silver?”

The voice _sounded_ like Diamond, Silver thought, but he couldn’t be sure. Her tone was usually harder and more impatient, especially when speaking to him. She didn’t seem to think very much of technicians, for reasons he failed to comprehend. Maybe the same thing that had left him here in this grey fog was imitating her voice, trying to fool him.

 _Silver, I_ know _you can hear me._

Oh, well, now _that_ was more like Diamond. _Yes. I’m here._

_Concentrate on me, Silver. Follow my voice, if you can. I’ve… you could say I’ve got you right here in my hands._

He pushed upwards through the fog – an odd movement, rather like trying to pull towards the surface from underwater. He found the experience confusing and not very pleasant. He closed his eyes and did as she had suggested, focusing on her. It wasn’t difficult. She suddenly seemed to be everywhere around him. He wasn’t sure he much liked that, either.

“Good,” she said, and he realised he was hearing her voice out loud this time, not in his head, or from an impassable distance.

Silver risked opening his eyes. He was lying on a hard floor, and Diamond was kneeling over him, holding onto his hand. She released him even as he registered the fact, and he found he felt alarmingly as if he was sinking back into the greyness.

“Oh no, you don’t, Silver,” she said and caught hold of him again, gripping his arm this time; her hold painfully tight. The unnerving sinking sensation ceased and reality – if reality it was – settled into place around him. “You’re staying here with me. I need you.”

Silver touched the floor’s surface with his free hand, trying to make sense of where he was and what had happened. He didn’t seem to be able to get any proper readings from it, however. That was worrying – and telling in itself. Then he focused on Diamond again. He looked up at her and gave a wary but hopeful smile. “Did you say –?”

“You’re back,” she said, ignoring the question. She let go of him, more cautiously this time, but he remained where he was, with no more drifting away. “Do you know where you were?”

Silver propped himself up by his elbows. “Oh, well, I think I could guess,” he bluffed. 

“In that,” said Diamond, throwing an object away from her; a square red plastic thing with a small grey screen, a toy. “It says it’s called an Etch-O-Sketch. You’re only lucky I didn’t shake you into nothing.” 

“You do like me,” he said, and grinned at her.

Diamond leant over him. “Oh, Silver,” she said. “I’ll confess – all those times when I’ve been –”

_Unreasonable? Unfeeling? Left me turned to stone?_

“All those times, yes. I…” She smiled. “I confess it, it’s true: I can’t stand you, Silver. You’re very irritating. But right now, you’re my only way out of this place, so I’ll admit you have your uses.”

Silver laughed. _You do like me._

“Can you do it?”

“Of course,” said Silver, in surprise. He had thought they’d already established that. He needed to examine where they were properly, but with the two of them – and that toy might come in handy – he could do it. 

“I’ll tell you something else as well,” Diamond said. “If you can’t, Silver; if it’s you and me stranded here together forever, then I’m afraid I am going to have to kill you. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“It’s lucky, isn’t it, then,” said Silver lightly, with a smile, “that there’s no chance of matters coming to that…”


	3. Indissoluble (Steel, Silver)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s been a wedding of sorts and tears – and now Sapphire is missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 99: silver & steel - Crying & Accidental marriage

_She’s making things worse_. Steel glanced at the woman sitting on the altar steps. His distaste was evident in his tone. _Crying._

Silver was crawling along the floor of a pew and at that, poked his head round the end to look at Steel and the human. _She’s a nuisance, I agree._

_More than that. It’s using the emotion to hold on here, even after we put an end to the ritual._

_Yes._ Silver’s amusement stole into his thoughts. _We weren’t ideal wedding guests. If it had been a real ceremony…_

Steel frowned at him and his irrelevancies. “Make her stop.”

 _Me?_ Silver’s expression changed to one of surprised annoyance. _I’m busy. Anyway, Steel, she’s crying because of the wedding. Even I can’t dissolve a marriage, unwanted or otherwise. We weren’t quite quick enough, were we? Not from their point of view._

Steel glared at him. _Silver._

Silver scowled in return, but then slid out into the aisle and bounced back onto his feet. His expression cleared as he approached the woman and, with a pause as if for permission, sat down beside her. She looked over at him in surprise, and he passed her a handkerchief. 

“I’m sure it wasn’t… official,” said Silver, and smiled, leaning in towards her. “Or legal – that’s the word, isn’t it? It can’t be, not in the circumstances.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, sniffing. “I left for work, the same as usual – and then – then I came here – and this – and I don’t even know _why_.”

“Time used you. It drew you here,” said Steel, turning aside briefly from where he was searching along another pew, knocking aside first a hassock, and then a pile of hymnals and bibles.

“To recreate a particular incident,” said Silver, patting the woman’s arm. “You walked past at the wrong moment – or precisely the right moment, I suppose.”

“But now I’m – I’m _married_!”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re not,” Silver said, waving a hand airily. “The vicar seemed very confused. And your – ah – your husband isn’t even here. I don’t think it counts if the groom runs away that quickly. And the witnesses weren’t technically real – or at least, not in any sense that _you_ would understand.”

_He should have run away sooner. It would have been more useful._

_Well, yes, Steel. But at least we don’t have two agitated humans to deal with._

_The priest._

_True. Then at least we don’t have three agitated humans to deal with..._

“I’m engaged to someone else!”

“Oh, yes. I see,” said Silver. “Congratulations?” He raised his eyes to the heavens, which were helpfully painted on the ceiling high above him. 

She moved to glare at him. “How am I supposed to explain any of this? I _don’t_ understand; I don’t know who you are and I’m –”

Steel marched over. “Getting hysterical. Stop it. It isn’t helping.” He turned his head towards the technician and silently added: _Silver. I said stop her._

 _I was about to!_

Silver edged in closer to the woman, regaining her attention by the movement. He put a hand to her shoulder. “His manners may need some work, but Steel is right. Tears and anger won’t help. But I can.”

“You?” she said, blinking back tears.

Silver shrugged. “I said. It can’t possibly have been _official_. There are a lot of unnecessary pieces of paper you seem to attach to these things. I’ll… talk to the vicar for you.”

Steel turned. _Go on, then, Silver. Whatever it is you have in mind. We need to finish this and she’s in the way_.

_Then we’ll find Sapphire?_

_Yes._

Silver walked over to the vestry and reappeared inside it without making use of the door. The vicar had the marriage register in his hands, staring at it blankly, but he paused to look at Silver, as if he hoped the visitor had an answer to the unspoken questions running through his mind.

Silver smiled brightly and took the book. “Thank you,” he said and vanished again. He arrived back on the steps, the book open in front of him, and turned to the last entry. As he did so, the words written in it welled up into pools of ink before drying into dark powder, which Silver shook away.

“There,” said Silver and grinned widely. He couldn’t resist a mischievous glance at Steel. “It seems I _can_ dissolve a marriage after all.”

The woman leant over. “That’s it –?”

“Yes, and now you can go, can’t you?” said Silver. “I would, otherwise Steel here might… well… insist.”

Steel moved over as the woman hurried away in confusion, and then he sat beside Silver. _Now Sapphire._

 _Yes._ Silver leant towards Steel and risked putting a hand on his arm. _Don’t worry, Steel. You’ll find her, and I’ll bring her back._


	4. Private Ventures (Copper, Silver)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles Smith is a teacher, that’s all, but his life doesn't seem to add up...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 27: copper - Power reversal & Boarding school AU. Pre-canon, 1840s.
> 
> Also written for element_flash's Sept 2012 prompt of 'Back to School'.

Charles Smith ceased his pacing up and down behind his desk and turned to face the classroom. Attendance was low today, but then it often was. They were an uneven group in every way – varying ages and degrees of raggedness sitting at the mismatched pieces of furniture that had been dragged into use as desks. (He wondered why he had not done better; somehow he felt he should have.) 

The boy at the back interrupted his thoughts by coughing yet again. Smith cast a stern glance over them all in response. Jack Higson in the front row was glowering up at him as ever, resenting having to be here. In the coming days, months or years, most of them would disappear to earn their way in the world, just to survive. Errand boys, servants, street sellers, farm hands, factory hands and so on. Yet it wasn’t those who resented being here that troubled him as much as those who were glad to be here, who enjoyed the learning. Tragically bright, he thought, but pushed the sentiment aside. A little education would stand them in good stead and, he trusted, improve their morals. 

Smith straightened himself, and set about testing their progress with predictable questions, listening to and correcting their answers; he was strict but not harsh.

“Good,” he said, as Anne Sully gave the correct response to his last question. Tragically bright, yes, he thought again, moving back to write on the slate board propped up on the easel at the front, not looking at the thin, eager nine-year-old girl in the middle row. So young, so bright… He wanted to teach her more, something he hadn’t quite put into words and certainly not something he had found in any of the school books: the nature of the material world, the complex structures that lay behind everyday items – the fabric of their clothes, the board, the wooden desk, and his pocket watch. He’d tried the other day, but that wasn’t… that wasn’t… The memory of the incident, whatever it had been, slid away from him.

Why should he have these thoughts? he wondered. He wasn’t learned in such matters himself. He had studied the classics, he knew Latin and Greek; he knew history but very little of scientific pursuits.

“Sir,” said Jack suddenly. “Sir –”

Smith turned around, about to scold and stopped on seeing a stranger standing in the doorway. The man had arrived noiselessly and without knocking. His style of clothing gave little away (it was plain enough, of the middling sort, perhaps he was a clerk), but he had bright red hair and no hat in his hands.

“You don’t mind, do you?” said the visitor with a smile. “Mr… ah…?”

“Smith,” he said stiffly. His unease increased although he could not have said why. “Charles Smith. Who, pray, are you, sir?”

The stranger only leant back against the door. “Smith,” he repeated, and he seemed to be amused by the name. “Well, yes. Of course. Now, Mr Smith, if I may have a word? It is important.”

Smith glanced aside at the children, who were very carefully not watching the exchange, heads down but ears alert. “Can it not wait?”

“No, it can’t.”

“Very well.” Smith gave his class a warning look, and then stepped out into the corridor with the stranger. He shut the door behind him and drew himself up against it, using his height against the odd visitor. “Yes?”

The man tilted his head to one side as he studied him. “You really don’t know who I am, do you? You _are_ still in there, aren’t you? But you must be…”

“You said this was important,” Smith snapped. The visitor’s behaviour was unreasonable – and yet there was something else, something that nagged at the back of his mind in a way he mistrusted. He took hold of himself and ignored that idea. “Who exactly are you, sir – and what is it that you want here?”

“Sir?” said the other and leant back against the wall and laughed quietly. “Copper, it’s me – Silver. Let me –”

“Copper?” With that, he should have been able to conclude that the man was quite definitely insane, but instead a cold fear was creeping over him, as if the door behind him had turned to ice. “Why do you call me that? Who sent you?”

Silver hesitated. “Well,” he said, and dusted down his jacket. “You know how it is. But Steel and Jet in this instance. You remember, don’t you? Time caught you with this – this disguise. This isn’t _you_ , Copper. But then, you always did like to lecture, so I suppose I can see the attraction –”

Charles Smith faced him, determined to tell him to leave at once. He might even speak to the parish constable about the fellow. And yet he didn’t do that. Instead he pressed himself back against the door, his hand gripping the door-handle behind his back as he remembered something. Steel and Jet. That very odd couple who had come to his lodgings last night. He had already forgotten that. And now… and now…

 

… now some small but indestructible thing expands outwards from the back of his mind, giving the lie to his life, the years until this point… Days, not years. It has only been days. The memory of years is nothing but illusion.

“I can help,” Silver says, but Smith – Copper – isn’t listening. He is caught between two existences, different patterns of thought, two separate ways of seeing and he is lost, floundering.

Then he looks up, registering the other’s presence again. “Silver,” he says with reluctance. He needs to accept his help; the process will be simpler, much less confusing and painful, but all this time, he’s been the one to keep Silver in line. He doesn’t want to give Silver the advantage now. However, what matters is what must be done. It is the only thing that ever matters. The rest of this confusion is a lie told by Time.

“Yes,” Silver says, thankfully without any nonsense, and reaches out a hand to Copper’s arm.

Thoughts fly back and forwards between them and Copper moves free of this false existence, this trap. As soon as that is done, he pulls away from Silver. He doesn’t know what Silver might have seen in that exchange and he’s uneasy with the potential loss of his hard-won authority.

“You should dismiss your class,” says Silver and then frowns. “I wonder what happened to their real teacher?”

“I don’t know,” says Copper. Already, Smith’s existence has flown away from him, forgotten and buried more deeply than Copper had been inside a human life. “I’ll send word to the proper authorities. It will be investigated.”

“They should have called for me sooner,” Silver says. “I can’t think why they didn’t.”

_You’re going to be impossible about this, aren’t you?_

Silver raises his eyebrows in what is most likely supposed to be offended innocence. “Copper! I don’t know what you mean.”

“Let’s hope so,” says Copper, and turns back to the door, hesitating. He feels for a moment as if there are other things he should remember, but then he shakes that away.

Silver smiles. “Although, now that you mention it, Copper, you could try being a little more careful in future, don’t you think?”

“You know,” says Copper, who doesn’t enjoy having his own words cast back at him, “this was unfortunate, but not, I believe on the level of that affair with the bridge and the soldier. Don’t you agree, Silver?”

 _Well, I can see_ you’re _back to your old self_ , returns Silver but he’s still smiling.

Copper draws himself up and glares at Silver. “Entirely,” he says, with emphasis, and then heads back into the classroom to send the children home.


	5. Watching the Show (Sapphire)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sapphire knows how to run away without leaving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 14. sapphire - High school AU & Ran away to join the circus.

Humans talk of running away to join the circus. It can be a literal thing, but more often it’s a phrase, a metaphor or a joke: an unlikely means of escape, of going on the run, or doing something wilder and more colourful than usual. To seek out excitement and spectacle, maybe even danger.

Sapphire doesn’t run away in the literal sense, or at least not for long enough to count. She knows what that would mean and she will not turn away from the purpose for which she was formed. But in the more metaphorical sense, Sapphire runs away to the circus many times in many ways, although perhaps it would be truer to say that she goes there to watch the performance than to join.

She touches, tastes, explores with every sense available the human world around her. She’s curious; it’s an important part of her essence and her function. She’s fascinated by her colleagues, too, their unique natures and she takes pleasure in being inside their thoughts, their minds. And then there’s Silver, though it’s been so long now that she’s unsure if that was always what they had in common or if he was the one who first showed her how to run away within the boundaries, to enjoy the show. Now there’s Steel. She knows he fears his strength sometimes, but she wants that danger, she likes the way it feels: danger and safety combined in a way that’s new for her.

In some ways, Sapphire runs away to the circus every day, but she’ll never go too far, she’ll always come back – especially now, especially for him.


	6. Trapped (Gold, Silver)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gold's not happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 67: silver & gold - Drabble & Stranded/survival scenario.
> 
> Gold is, of course, not mine, but from the Big Finish audios, where he’s played by Mark Gatiss.

Gold surveyed the doorless room with disfavour. “I must have ‘expendable’ engraved somewhere. Guess who gets sacrificed _again_?”

“Gold –”

“Trapped forever in a concrete prison with no one but you –”

“Gold!”

“It’s tragic, really.”

Silver pushed a cable end into his hands. “ _Thank_ you, Gold.”

“What’s this?”

“Escape, I hope.”

“It’s disconnected. Useless, I’m afraid, Silver.”

Silver rejoined him, now holding the other end, and nodded towards a box on the ceiling. “A security system – and it _is_ active. Now, hold that and let’s leave, shall we?”

“This doesn’t,” said Gold, “make you better than me, you know.”


	7. Reflections (Sapphire/Copper)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The assignment’s all but over, so Sapphire finds other ways to amuse herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-canon, 1760s.
> 
> Prompt 19: copper & sapphire - Pre-canon & Parallel universes

Now that they have located the source, the connecting factor, there’s not very much that Sapphire can do. She leans back against the plaster of the wall and, sidelong, watches Copper as he works. 

The technician is focused on the mirror panel in front of him. Through it they can see the ballroom, but it’s not the simple reflection it should be: the mirror image is brightly lit by chandeliers while they have only lamplight here in the gloom. The other ballroom is full of dancers while this is empty. Every now and then those dancers make their ghostly way into this reality and then glide away into nothing again, translucent.

Sapphire crouches down close to Copper and guides his hand to where the disturbance is the strongest and then she straightens up and moves away to circle the room one more time, keeping an eye on the other mirrored panels, but they have identified the right one. There’s no movement anywhere else.

She returns to Copper and smiles to herself. She’s always ready to know more of her colleagues, and in Copper’s case, she wonders about something Silver has said. (Although she’s learned that what Silver says about Copper is rarely reliable – at least, not any more than what Copper says about Silver.)

So she sits against the wall, next to him, while he works and smiles when he glances across at her. When something moves across the room, she puts a warning hand to his arm. _Copper._

Copper lifts his head, gives her an enquiring look.

 _I’ll look_ , she says, still in his mind and then smiles again, more briefly, before she gets up and walks across the darkened ballroom. Something in the distance scurries away. 

“An animal?” Copper asks.

She nods. _Yes. A mouse, I think, not a rat._

Then she takes her time making her way back over and alters her costume twice as she walks. She’s been wearing a plain grey dress, less awkward and bulky than the gowns that this room would often see; a dress for working in – appropriate for the task in hand. She knows Copper prefers not be conspicuous. Now she tries something that matches the ballroom: an impossibly elaborate dress with gold and silver edged lace and trimmings and a tall wig to match. The wide skirts sweep the floor and she smiles to herself. Then as she nears Copper, she changes her mind again and switches to a man’s outfit and touches the lace at her throat. She never ceases to be amused that such a simple thing can cast humans into confusion. She’s still the same, after all.

“Sapphire,” says Copper without turning his head. “It’s closed. If you would make certain…?”

 _Of course_. Then, as she kneels down to do so, she borrows another outfit, this time a dress in satin but relatively simple in cut and width, midnight blue in colour, but striking enough. She returns her attention to the mirror. All she can see this time is her own reflection and she smiles at that with satisfaction. Then she puts out her hand to touch the polished metal, to be completely sure.

“Yes,” she says as she stands again. “It’s done.”

Copper puts his few neat tools back into his pocket and then pauses as he looks back at her and at the mirror. “I think the image was from the future.”

“The future?”

“Yes,” says Copper and moves back towards her. “Not the past. The dance was not one I recognise.”

Sapphire breaks into a smile, not having expected that and she’s pleased to be surprised by him. “The dance?”

“Dancing has set rules and patterns – unlike most activities they engage in,” Copper explains and she isn’t sure that he isn’t hiding amusement at her. “I find that… pleasing.” Then he holds out his hand with a characteristic gravity to his movements and leads her into a silent dance, in mimicry of the mirror dancers they have banished from the room.

Sapphire directs an amused look at him as they dance. “I didn’t think that you…” She smiles again. _I didn’t think you would do something like this. After all, Silver says –_

“Ah, yes,” says Copper and breaks into a rare, full smile. “But I’ve always thought it good for Silver to be wrong every now and then.”

Sapphire lets him lead her on, takes in the knowledge of the new dance he has observed while working. There are patterns, she thinks, he’s right, although that’s not all the movements are. “And is Silver wrong about… other things?”

“Perhaps,” says Copper, ceasing the dance. (After all, a dance from the future is a risk, even for them.) He raises her hand to kiss it and steps back as he releases her. “However, I do think that unnecessary distractions while on assignment are dangerous.”

Sapphire’s mouth twitches at the corners. “Oh?”

“Quite. Charming as you are, Sapphire,” he says, facing her and seeming somehow taller than before, “if I did allow… Well, if so, I would prefer not to be merely an object of curiosity.”

Sapphire is unperturbed; her gaze now an amused challenge back at him. “Oh, not _merely_ , Copper,” she says. “Never that.”


	8. Phantoms (Steel, Silver)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One way or another, Steel and Silver are going to become the thing they fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 93: steel & silver - Presumed dead & Bad boys

Everything he can see is grey. It’s a garden, but there’s no colour anywhere. Like at night, or at least more like that than being in a black and white film, but this isn’t either of those things.

Steel turns his head and looks at the one other real, colour thing in this grey place: Silver. “Well?”

“Well what?” Silver is pretending to straighten his jacket, then tugging at the end of his waistcoat, playing with his fingers – anything but looking at Steel. And there’s an irritable edge to his voice. He’s afraid. Steel can feel that now; it’s the only thing there is to sense outside himself.

“Silver, where are we?”

“Don’t you know?” says Silver, and he looks up, but outward, not at Steel; the grey of their surroundings reflecting in the grey of his eyes. “We’re not anywhere. Or perhaps you could say we are somewhere, but we don’t exist.”

“If we didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be here.”

“In the conventional sense,” said Silver. He gives Steel a quick, sad smile. “We’re outside. Outside everything.”

_And that scares you?_

Silver actually jumps at the unexpected contact and then glares at him. “No. Yes. Of course it does.”

“How do we get back?”

Silver laughs, then but without much amusement.

_Silver?_

The fear is stronger again; Silver’s gripped by it and Steel can’t quite get a hold on what it is and why. He strives to ignore that; it won’t help.

“We’re… here where we shouldn’t be. Hanging on outside of time.” Silver looks at Steel as if he expects him to understand.

Steel thinks about it. The entity, the thing that had sent them here had been powerful, malicious, strong… He itches to get back and stop it. He knows how, was on the point of doing so, if it hadn’t twisted things against them and cast them out here. Outside, he thinks, and then glances across at Silver with a slight curl to his mouth. “That’s what it wants us to do? Break back in?”

Silver nods. 

So they can let it defeat them by staying here, or they can help it by forcing themselves back into time, into full existence – creating their own time break. Yet Steel frowns. Silver’s fear is more than that, more than fear of what Steel will do, although that’s there too.

”And if we don’t?” Steel asks, pushing for more information. “If we stay here, refuse to do what it wants? They’ll send someone else to stop it.” He’s grudging about that, unsure anyone else would manage it but he acknowledges they’d try.

“Then we’ll eventually be mere… mere _things_ waiting outside to get back in.”

“No,” says Steel, who is always and only himself.

Silver gives another small smile. “We’re nothing, nowhere. We will fade. We’ll just be…” He stops, failing to find the words and pulls a face instead, and waves his hands in lieu of adequate description. “Even _you_ , Steel.”

The first frost of fear reaches him then, but again he ignores it and considers the options. He keeps an eye on Silver and wonders if the technician isn’t already looking faded or if that’s the odd light or lack of it. Steel moves nearer and grips Silver’s arm, causing him to glance across and give a half-hearted smile.

“Then we’ll have to break back in,” Steel says in his ear. 

“Steel!” Silver’s outrage is almost amusing, Steel thinks, given the circumstances. “You know what it is you’re saying, don’t you?”

 _Silver_. Steel keeps hold of him and leans forward. “You’ll find the point where we’ll do the least damage. Or can’t you do that?” He’s learned precisely the note with which to challenge Silver; it never fails.

“Of course I can!”

Steel nods. “And we can seal it again on the other side. That’s something we can do.”

“Yes, but –”

_You’d prefer to stay here?_

“No.” Silver gives Steel an affronted look and as Steel releases him, reaches in his pocket for a pen-like torch and shines it about them, though Steel doesn’t know what he’s looking for or why he even needs a light. 

After far too long wandering about alongside a ghostly wall, Silver halts. “Aha!” 

Then he kneels down beside it and starts fiddling about with one of the bricks, even though it looks the same as all the rest to Steel. It takes long enough, Steel thinks. Too long. He paces up and down this nowhere place, barely making an impression on the grey grass, and then still winds up threatening to push their way through by brute force if Silver doesn’t get on and finish sooner.

“What we’re doing is bad enough as it is,” Silver reminds him. There’s still an odd undercurrent of something behind his words, inside his mind. Is it fear again? Yes, Steel thinks, it’s fear; fear and misery. He frowns, but at that point Silver looks up at him with a sudden, real smile. He’s got through. The brick is glowing now, a bright white in front of him.

Steel crouches down beside Silver. “Silver. What else is there? There’s another problem, isn’t there?”

Silver shifts away from him. “Well, it’s not… I don’t _know_ …

_Silver. I have to know._

“It’s not so much the damage,” Silver says, gesturing towards the opening he’s made, “or even what we might risk letting through. It’s what we might bring back with us… in us.”

Steel looks at him, but he understands. They’re here now; they’re on the wrong side of everything. They’re outside and outside is becoming a part of them.

“We could carry something back inside us, the same way humans do with viruses.” Then Silver shrugs. “Change ourselves. But I don’t know. Nobody knows very much about this. Whatever this is.”

“Silver,” says Steel. “Has this happened before?”

“Very probably,” Silver mutters and he’s closed in on himself, so Steel doesn’t push the matter. It isn’t important. It hasn’t happened to them before and they’re not the others. It isn’t a boast to say they’re more effective, he and Sapphire – and the three of them together even more so.

That thought causes him to smile. The answer is obvious. “Sapphire,” he says.

“Well, yes, of course I’m worried about her, too,” says Silver, the edginess apparent in his voice again. Then he stops, catches himself and laughs with genuine humour for the first time since they’ve been here. “Of course. Sapphire.”

She’ll check them, take readings if necessary. Between them they can close any break, deal with any lurking intruder, within or without. This isn’t something they should be doing, but they can make it work. Steel doesn’t think about what happens if they can’t. There’s no point in what ifs.

Silver looks across at Steel and takes a deep breath. _Ready, Steel?_

“Yes. Get on with it,” says Steel. Nothing’s going to be improved by waiting, is it?

Silver hesitates, then catches hold of Steel’s sleeve and together they break the rules, commit their unthinkable crime in this ghostly garden, and vanish to face the consequences.


	9. Persuasion (Silver)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silver always gets on well with pretty bits of technology

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 74: silver - Angst & Manic pixie dream girl. With thanks to Justice Turtle who explained to me what the cliché/trope meant, that Silver was one anyway, and wondered what I’d do with it. 
> 
> Possible warning for manipulation?

She was sitting on the computer desk as he walked in, shutting the door softly behind his back. Or, no, he corrected himself rapidly, she wasn’t _sitting_ – she had carefully placed herself there as if she were.

She looked up at him, blurring a little with the movement and once she’d caught herself again, she’d changed: her hair was still long and brown, but curling at the ends where before it had been straight, and darker. She had switched from jeans and a long-sleeved top to a light, cream suit; a deep red triangle of her top visible at the front.

“You’re new,” she said and smiled at him.

Silver smiled back, but edgily, and made an attempt to reappear next to the computer. Instead, the room itself blurred into light and then they were both at the seaside. She was leaning against the blue painted iron bars of the promenade’s front, looking out at the unreal sea. Now she was wearing a summer dress – short-sleeved, patterned and floating.

“Don’t be boring,” she said, turning her head back to look at him. “You don’t want that old thing. This is much better, isn’t it?”

Silver laughed, lightly, but he could see and feel the darkness eating away at the edges of the bright picture she’d created. “It’s charming,” he said. “But I’m afraid I do need to look at the machine.”

She vanished into a pinpoint of light and then reappeared directly in front of him. “No. You can’t. I don’t want you to.” Then she tilted her head to one side, and smiled again. “I’m Amy, by the way. Who are you?”

“Silver,” he said and held out his hands as if to signal that he wasn’t about to try anything, although that wasn’t precisely true. “The trouble is, this illusion isn’t enough. I think you know that.”

Amy stared upwards and then the image about them shifted in a myriad of squares until it cleared again and they were standing in a field; an unnaturally green field with grass and wildflowers too evenly spaced around them. The blue sky overhead was bright but sunless.

“There,” she said. “How about that?”

“Oh, I agree, it’s pretty.” Silver bent down and picked a bright yellow, perfectly formed buttercup and tucked it behind her ear. “Almost as pretty as you.”

She gasped and then stared at him. “How – how did you -?”

“And every bit as unreal,” he added, taking her hand.

Amy looked down at her hand in his and then put her other hand to the flower in her hair. “You – you touched me.” She widened her eyes. “You are different, aren’t you? You really are.”

“Well,” said Silver, amused, “I like to think so.” He kept hold of her hand, gently, but he still held on. He worked on giving her a little more reality. It wasn’t impossible; after all, she had some presence here, however small. A graphic, maybe as much as 1000x2000 pixels somewhere in a file, copied files, possibly print-outs. It was only another sort of reduplication.

She closed her eyes. “You can make me real. You can, can’t you?”

“I can solve your problem,” he said and raised her hand to kiss it. Her image wavered again. “Yes, I can do that.”

She reached out without opening her eyes and gripped the cloth of his jacket. Then she opened them again. “I didn’t know… how it would feel. It’s – it’s –”

“Real,” said Silver for her, leaning in nearer for a moment. “I know. Artificial fibres… machine work, human labour. Real.”

She trembled again, her image blurring into pixels. Then she moved closer and kissed him, lightly.

“Well?” he asked, amused again.

She had no human embarrassment. “I only wondered. They all seem to…”

“Yes, they do, don’t they? And you don’t know why,” he finished for her, with a small smile. “Well, it was rather nice from where I was standing. But I must look at the computer itself if you want my help.”

The illusion around them fell away and they were back in the spare room-cum-office of the house. It looked terribly ordinary, even dingy in comparison. Silver moved past her and over to the machine instantly. Then he turned back.

“Show me,” he said. “Everything. Any file, anywhere that might have been uploaded, back-up copies –”

Amy nodded and sat on the chair in front of the computer. She could sit this time; he’d done that much. Then, as she opened up the first folder, she looked back at him with a sudden fear.

Silver put his hand to her shoulder and stroked her hair. “Yes,” he said. “I know. But look up, above you.”

She did so and they both saw the growing darkness spreading across the ceiling that should have been ordinary white painted plaster.

“If you were to become real,” he said in her ear, “that’s the first and the last thing you would know. Find me those files. You can do that.”

She looked back at the screen. “But you –” She stopped and then took a breath that wasn’t a breath at all, merely a mimicry of what the humans did. “I only want to be real, to leave here. I want to help. I only want to be real.”

“No,” said Silver, serious now and terse. “No. It isn’t what you want. It’s what someone else wants, what they’ve projected onto you.”

“But you said – You said.”

“I said I could solve your problems,” said Silver, keeping one hand on her shoulder. “Yes, but only this way. If you want to help, then you’ll give me those files. If you don’t, you’ll be swallowed up in that – and so will this place, that human in the next room and maybe everything else if my colleagues can’t prevent it spreading. I’m afraid I’ve already given you all the reality you can have.”

She looked at the screen ahead of her and opened folders and tabs without another word, though non-existent tears fell onto and through the keyboard.

“Is it everything?” he asked softly and when she nodded, set about deleting it all. He didn’t even have to touch the computer to do it. It was such an easy thing for him to do, such a terribly simple way to complete an assignment.

She looked down, and watched herself slowly begin to grow translucent.

“It won’t hurt,” Silver said and kept hold of her, even though she was barely there. He could do that, too. No one else could have done any of it. How lucky it was that he was here. “I promise. And the alternative would, I assure you.” 

She was almost completely gone now, fading away layer by layer, nothing but a composite collection of amalgamated images, colouring and adjustment layers and human imagination. It wasn’t her doing. A human had made her, unwittingly, had projected emotion onto her and the power lurking here for so long had found that a conduit it could use. Silver gave another wary glance upward at that thought, but the darkness was dispersing along with her.

She was holding on, though, whether she meant to or not – or perhaps it was still fiercely holding onto her, as first one thing and another had for all of her short existence. Silver much preferred admiring and exploring the clever, pretty things the humans made to destroying them, but he also knew his purpose. He smiled distantly, and knelt down beside her chair. Then he glanced up at her, all but invisible now, and took her hand and kissed her palm: a final distraction. 

When he looked up again, she had gone.


	10. Exhibition (Silver/Sapphire)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sapphire, Silver, and flirting in the cause of duty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-canon: London, 1851.
> 
> Prompt 79: silver & sapphire - Birthday & Everyone thinks they're doing it. With thanks to Persiflage, who picked this prompt out of the (ridiculously long) list and thought it might be fun. Because it was.
> 
> Silver/Sapphire. But also Silver/Sapphire/Everyone (ish). Because.

“Silver.” Sapphire turned with a smile as he arrived next to them in the ballroom.

He smiled back and eyed their brightly lit and elegant surroundings – and Sapphire - with approval. “Very nice.” He didn’t get to choose where he was sent and it had been too long since he had been assigned to assist Sapphire.

“It’s not,” said Iron. “We need to find the one person in this overcrowded room who is causing the problem. I don’t understand why you’ve been sent, Silver.”

Silver was already busy admiring Sapphire’s gown, but he glanced up at that. “Well, since I’m here…”

Iron nodded. “It’ll take less time with three, that’s true. But we may be missing something…” He stared out at the people around them.

“It’s good to see you again,” said Sapphire as Iron walked away from them.

Silver leant back against her, amusement clear in his expression. _They’re talking about us._

She put her hand to his shoulder, closer still. She never minded attracting anyone’s attention. “Oh?”

_They seem to think you must be Lord Elton’s new bride, bored already. They’re not surprised about that – but they are wondering who I am._

Sapphire laughed and smoothed down his dress jacket and shook her head at his striped waistcoat. _Oh, a fortune hunter, no doubt. Definitely a bad influence – a shameless scoundrel, a gambler… Or maybe the footman getting above himself._

“Thank you, Sapphire,” he said and grinned back at her.

Iron looked back over at them. _We need to find the source of the disturbance. You two will need to talk to other people._

Silver and Sapphire exchanged another glance, and Silver pulled a mock-apologetic face, before turning to do as he was told.

Sapphire looked outward at everyone else in the room, but she caught at his sleeve, causing him to look back at her. Her expression was utterly innocent; her thoughts were not: _Silver. If we’re talking to other people, then perhaps…_

 _A… contest?_ Silver bit back amusement and then kissed her hand in the old-fashioned way – they had both been around when it wasn’t outmoded. She always surprised and delighted him.

_In a way, but it’s only -_

“Mixing business with pleasure?” he returned. “Of course. What would you say is our measure of success?”

“I think a kiss should suffice,” she said, and the look she gave him was a challenge.

Silver’s lips twitched, but he said nothing more. She wanted to push him, to see what he would do. He didn’t know why, this time, but why not? He was prepared to play.

*

[Silver’s tally]

One: the Dowager, the birthday girl’s grandmother, who told him she was flattered, she hadn’t been so amused in years, but she was sure he was a terrible rogue. Which he thought unfair, but it counted anyway.

Two: the rather drunk young man he found out in the hallway who asked him if he had the time, and, of course, Silver always did.

Three: Lord Elton’s bride, who was indeed as bored as the gossips had said, but if they were right about that they were entirely wrong in thinking she might be anywhere near as charming as Sapphire.

Four: the young lady (only a little older than the other young ladies who were busy being whirled around the ballroom) who had been left to sit and watch for half the night, though he couldn’t comprehend why that should be. He passed her effortlessly onto a partner once he needed to leave her.

None of them were what they were looking for – nobody so far had been. Which left, he thought, one rather obvious conclusion.

*

[Sapphire’s tally]

One: the older man who’d been looking for the card room and whom she’d reduced to stammering and confusion and an inability to find which way he was facing, let alone the card room.

Two: the elderly but engaging flirt who had been delighted to find she agreed with him that the world had grown too dull and respectable these days. Or worse, he’d said, the world never changed, and they were nothing but hypocrites.

Three: the girl who’d gone into one of the other rooms with her, wanting help with a tear in a dress. What she’d got in addition had startled her and left her looking flushed and thoughtful as Sapphire left.

Four: Not the arrogant young man who seemed to be having some sort of bet with his fellows about some of the young women, but his shy friend standing to the side, who’d been about equal parts horrified and delighted to be singled out for attention when Sapphire had pulled him away.

Five: a rather drunk young man she’d found out in the hallway who hadn’t been terribly clear about whether he was looking for the food or someone with more champagne, but who had blushed scarlet when she had asked him if he knew the time.

But they weren’t the problem; they had all been the kind of people she had expected to find. Sapphire turned her attention to the couple in the centre, the two who’d been together all evening: the girl whose birthday celebration this was and the young man who shared that birthday and – so everybody said – was very likely about to announce their betrothal before the evening was out.

They hadn’t danced very much, either, she realised. They’d chiefly been standing there, keeping close to that side of the room – near to a decorative clock placed there.

_Silver…_

“I know,” he said, suddenly beside her again. 

_We should separate them._

Silver glanced at them with a momentary hesitation, as if he were about to raise an objection, but then he nodded instead. _Yes. We should._

*

The young man would have argued, but when faced with Sapphire he lost what he’d been about to say and it was easy for Silver to steal his partner, guide her gently away to the other side of the ballroom and then out into one of the other rooms.

She was very young, he thought, taking her hand again. Not yet nineteen, although in a few minutes more she would be. Silver inclined his head to the side, as she stared down, trying to hide her face. She’d been shaking even before he cut in on her dance, he had noticed that. “It’s all right,” he said, quietly. “Sapphire’s with your… friend. He won’t be coming after you.”

The girl looked up then and let out her breath, as if she’d been holding it in all night.

“Yes,” he said, as if she’d spoken. “Something was compelling you to stay there – to be with him? You didn’t want to, did you?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t know how it happened – as if something kept pulling me on. I – I don’t understand –”

Silver nodded. “No, I don’t suppose you do. But nothing’s going to happen, not now.” Everything seemed very clear now. For some reason what Time wanted, what it was using, was these two people and this significant date that they shared. He kept a light hold on the girl, in case. _Sapphire. This is it. It’s these two – or him chiefly, I think._

 _Yes_ , she said in his mind. _But it’s also the clock, Silver._

He could see it, visualise it through her eyes. Of course. Yes, of course. The timepiece as well. Once it struck midnight, like in an old story. Well, stories had power and so did dates, times, emotions, and many other things. He should look at it, but the essential thing was to keep these two humans apart - so, ironically, he couldn’t do what he had been sent to do. Someone else would have to take a more drastic approach.

 _Iron? You have to get to the clock. Sapphire and I... have our hands full._ That was literally true at this moment, as the girl had inconveniently decided to start crying and clutching at him. And he _would_ rather have had a proper look at that clock. Still… _Just stop it before it chimes midnight. You can be as unsubtle as you wish._

 _I’m already with Sapphire. I know._ Iron’s reply was as terse as ever.

“I’m sorry,” said the girl, drawing away from Silver suddenly. “I – I don’t even know you.”

Silver gave a quick smile. “No,” he said. “You don’t. But it is all right.”

*

“Five,” said Sapphire, who was standing by the remains of the clock, when Silver rejoined her, having deposited the girl with her parents. They’d been inclined to ask tiresome questions until he assured them that she’d had a narrow escape and then slipped away from them. He’d seen Iron marching the young man out and the guests were still gossiping about the unexpected conclusion to the evening’s celebrations. They were stealing looks at Sapphire, who only appeared pleased by their stares. Soon, no doubt, he thought, they’d all be back to pretending nothing had happened. Which was more or less true now, he supposed.

“Silver,” said Sapphire, as he couldn’t keep from bending down to retrieve pieces of the shattered clock and examining them. “How many?”

He looked up at her and stood again. “How many…?”

“Yes. Silver?”

Silver laughed lightly. “Oh, that. Four. And a half, perhaps.”

“It’s not like you to lose, Silver.”

He moved to stand next to her again; too close for polite society. They attracted more glances, whether because of the earlier disturbance or their behaviour, he didn’t know. He wasn’t terribly interested, either way. “But I haven’t lost – or not yet.”

Sapphire turned her head and raised her eyebrow.

“I’m merely saving the best till last,” he said, and kissed her hand once more. “Whether or not I’ve lost – well, that’s up to you, Sapphire.”

She looked at him, and then she laughed and slipped her arm through his.

 _I think they’re talking about us again. Making an exhibition of ourselves._ He shot her an amused glance.

“We should leave,” said Sapphire. “We’re not wanted here, and we’re not needed anymore. And if we’re talking of exhibitions, there’s something nearby I wanted to show you.”

“Oh?”

She nodded, as they headed for the nearest door together. “A different kind of Exhibition. I think you’ll appreciate it. Iron didn’t, but then – what we had to deal with there before –” She turned back before they left this hallway, before they vanished together. “And no, Silver. You haven’t lost. Not this time.”


	11. Connections (Copper, Silver)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An assignment’s gone badly wrong and now Silver is missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-canon, 1600s. 
> 
> Prompt 5: copper & silver - Confession in desperate situation & Timeloops

Copper can see very little around him in this darkness; he has only a candle and sometimes it seems to throw more shadow than it does light. He is in a mine that was abandoned by the humans centuries ago. The tunnel he’s in is uneven and there are unexpected pools of water to watch out for, not to mention the rockfalls that have blocked other passages in years gone by. Nevertheless he walks a sure line, barely having to glance at his path. It is, after all, a place that feels more natural than most to him.

What he isn’t sure of, what he fears he might miss, and why he raises the candle about him is something else again. Copper searches on, though he tells himself he cannot even be certain that Silver is here.

… And that’s a lie, part of the game they play. He knows Silver is here, and now is not the time for that pretence. 

Copper walks on and then, just before another dead end, he sees what he’s looking for. Silver is leaning back against the rock wall with his eyes closed, but he doesn’t move as Copper reaches him, doesn’t acknowledge his presence in any way.

“Silver,” says Copper, standing beside him. Silver still fails to react, so Copper gives a brief grimace, realising that he needs to try harder – and Copper usually aims to avoid contact with Silver. Silver never needs much encouragement, that’s what Copper thinks. _Silver, it’s Copper._

The silence is unnerving, so he continues aloud: “Quartz returned without you. Without Bronze.” 

Copper sighs; he’ll have to do more. He puts a hand to Silver’s shoulder and shakes him and when that’s no use, he moves the hand to Silver’s head and hopes he hasn’t arrived too late.

Silver is barely here at all, overwhelmed by something… Copper frowns and concentrates. This isn’t his area of expertise. It’s a sensation of terror, a voice repeating itself in his mind, the words going round and round. Bronze’s voice, reporting her findings but then disintegrating into pain and fear and finally silence before the cycle starts again.

Copper draws back and considers his next move. It’s a time loop, but not one that is present here. The echo of it is in Silver’s head in an ever-tightening circle that will shortly close in on his mind with a snap of finality, if Copper doesn’t break it.

 _I’m not surprised_. He shakes Silver again. _I’ve told you before. Be more objective, more careful. Be precise about your findings. You didn’t stop to examine the situation more fully before you walked into it, did you?_

Silver twitches.

_If you won’t listen to me, what else do you expect? Next time –_

“Look before you leap,” says Silver and opens his eyes. “Only _you_ , Copper, would try to lecture someone out of – out of –” He pauses and looks away to the side.

Copper faces him. “But Bronze? That was not a trick?”

“No,” Silver says and sags back against the rock. “ _Not_ a trick. She had found a book, an old illuminated volume – she thought something was hiding in the lettering, or even the dyes. She was right – it stole out and took her. I couldn’t reach her. There was a time loop –”

Copper knows where this is heading; he’s known all along or he would not have come. He looks at Silver; he doesn’t have to say it. He doesn’t have to voice the painful accusation. 

“Yes,” says Silver and then shrugs. “Well, unless _you_ believe there’s an…” He pauses and glances at the other and pulls a brief, wry face. “… An alternative explanation.”

Slowly, Copper smiles and Silver gives a short laugh in return. The fact that they are both here is an unspoken if unwilling confession of trust between them: Silver hiding where only Copper would know to look, and Copper coming in search of him. He never had any doubt in his mind about Silver, not in that respect.

“Quartz,” Silver says, and there’s a bitter twist to his mouth. Copper’s close enough to share the sudden wave of sadness that follows that admission. 

Copper nods. _She implied that you…_

_I suppose she would._

“Could you be mistaken?”

“No,” says Silver, aloud this time and on seeing Copper raise his eyebrow, he grimaces at him. “ _No._ In theory, it could have been the entity – but, no. It was a trap. Quartz led us there and that time loop was her work. I couldn’t mistake _that_.”

“You should have…” Copper pauses, not entirely sure what would have been better, but not this running away, he thinks.

“I don’t know why yet. And I could hardly ask her, not then, not alone.”

Copper nods again. He considers that aspect of it: they don’t know why Quartz betrayed them. It’s possible she’s been tricked herself, or coerced, or possessed.

“Yes,” murmurs Silver, who had liked them both, Quartz and Bronze. Well, Copper’s always told Silver that sentiment isn’t useful, so he ignores Silver’s passing emotion; he dismisses the idea that he might share it.

Copper straightens himself. “In that case, I can see only one course of action. You can’t be trusted on your own, Silver. They said you destroyed that book without instructions – you’re a specialist, not an operator. I’ve told you before about your carelessness in that respect. You’ll be under _my_ supervision from now on. Again.”

“Now, wait, _Copper_ –” Silver raises his head in sudden indignation and the sense of sadness has fallen away into the shadows behind him.

“Until I decide you’ve learned your lesson,” Copper finishes. “Now, let’s leave and find Quartz.”

“A little sympathy wouldn’t go amiss,” says Silver. “Sometimes I don’t know why I like you at all.”

Copper looks over at him. He is amused, as Silver probably suspects, but he hopes it’s hidden deep enough for the other not to be sure. “There you are again. Liking is irrelevant.”

“And I don’t know how you exist with that attitude. But –”

Copper pauses, on the point of walking away.

Silver straightens himself, moves from the rock wall at last and gives Copper a brief smile. “Well. Perhaps some things _are_ more important.”


	12. Interrupted (Jet/Silver)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jet and Silver in the closet. For reasons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 59: jet & silver - Deus Ex Machina & Closeted. But probably not the way either cliché is intended, really. And I think my personal casting for Jet was Josette Simon from the first time she was mentioned

Silver ran his hand along the top shelf of the closet while Jet watched.

“Further to your right,” she said, leaning against the opposite wall of the narrow space. “It is there. I can feel it. It might as well be screaming at me.”

Silver turned his head. “It also seems to be… I don’t know… shrouded by something. As if the object is generating its own protective bubble of space.”

“From what I gather, it probably is.”

“But it is feeding off the electrical supply, so if I follow this along...”

The door to the closet was suddenly pushed open behind them, interrupting Silver. Jet reappeared next to Silver before the unwanted human had managed to poke his head around the door. By the time he had, she’d grabbed hold of Silver and set about kissing him.

“Oh,” said the human. “I say – I mean – beg pardon and all that.”

The door shut again.

“Jet,” said Silver, raising an eyebrow at her.

She removed herself with a satisfied smile. “What? _You’re_ not going to complain, surely?”

“Never,” returned Silver. “Although your timing, Jet – I was about to disconnect the power source.”

Jet shrugged. “I’m tired of explanations. What else would a human think we were doing hiding in here at a party?” She looked over at him and noted the items that had fallen from the shelf and that he was now pressed underneath it at an awkward angle, and laughed at him. “Oh, very suave, Silver.”

“You took me by surprise,” he said, attempting a stern look and failing. “If not, well –” He beamed at her.

“I’m sure,” she said and leant back against the opposite wall again. “Come on, then. Let’s get this little god out of its box.”

“We don’t know what it is yet.”

“I do,” said Jet. “An idol, a small statue – something they’ve made into a holy object. And it shouldn’t be here. It doesn’t _want_ to be here.”

Silver nodded. “Yes. I understand.” Then he raised an eyebrow at her and gave a mischievous, hopeful smile. “And if we’re interrupted again?”

“Then I promise I’ll be gentle with you, Silver…”


	13. Day Trip (Sapphire/Steel)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sapphire and Steel have run away – if only for the afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-canon, 1960s.
> 
> Prompt 84: steel & sapphire - Runaways & Pre-canon

The old-fashioned tea-shop is there for the tourists, but then, thinks Sapphire, that is what they are today.

Steel sits uncomfortably at the small, circular table. He doesn’t drink tea; he doesn’t drink anything, and the surroundings aren’t very him, even if he did.

Sapphire doesn’t precisely fit in, either. She’s chosen a demure suit in powder blue that’s rounded at the edges. She should be unremarkable, but she isn’t; she never is. The older couples around them keep glancing over at her, at both of them.

“We should go back.”

 _Relax, Steel. The assignment is over. We aren’t needed anywhere else, not yet. It’s not a crime not to return – temporarily, of course_. She steals an amused look at him.

He returns a decidedly unamused one, but she knows he doesn’t mean it. He’s eyeing the tea-shop with disfavour, though - its jumble of cheap, flower-patterned china, fake and genuine antiques, and mismatched furniture. Old photographs on the walls, next to paintings that are recent copies of older works. So many potential dangers, all set in a centuries-old building with timber-beams across the ceiling that are older still.

Sapphire puts her hand over his and draws his attention back to her. If he didn’t notice such things, he wouldn’t be Steel – and she loves him both for what he is and what he isn’t.

He catches that thought of hers and raises an eyebrow.

 _Yes._ She smiles. _I meant you to hear that._

Steel smiles in return and his wariness lessens. He goes so far as to grudgingly humour her. “And what else do people do on this sort of…?”

“Day trip,” she finishes for him. She plays with his hand, intertwining their fingers. “I thought a walk in the park next.”

He follows her gaze to the window, sees the sun shining out there and they both share an acknowledgement that it’s welcome after the darkness and the horrors of the last assignment – of so many assignments.

“That sounds… acceptable.”

She smiles back, brightly this time, and they both stand together in one smooth movement. Sapphire keeps hold of his hand, keeps him close as they exit the overly quaint café. She leans against him as they pause outside in the doorway and there’s mischief lurking in her eyes. “Now, we should go and feed the ducks.”

Steel turns his head, trying to work out the joke and failing. _Ducks?_

She laughs. “Yes, ducks. On the duckpond. You’ll see.”


	14. Frozen (Silver/Steel)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s not easy for Steel to let Silver help him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 90: steel & silver - Cuddling for warmth & Forbidden romance.

“No,” said Steel with emphasis, making the word as final as he could.

Silver looked up from where he was sitting in the corner amidst a tangle of wires and an assorted collection of mechanical bits and pieces. He seemed to fail to notice that it had been supposed to be the end of the discussion. “There isn’t much choice, Steel.”

Steel glared at him, while shivering underneath Silver’s jacket as well as his own. _Get out. You said you could before. Then go._

“You know,” said Silver as he held up two of the wires and examined them carefully, “you’re even grumpier at lower temperatures and I hadn’t thought that possible.”

_Silver._

Silver gave an impatient little huff and then looked over at him. “When you stopped that – that _thing_ out there, I don’t know what else you did, because now I can’t get through. I’m going to need you for that. And if we sit here in what is effectively a glorified metal box while your temperature drops – well, I don’t like that idea very much, either. Mine is better.”

“Silver, you can’t –”

“Not normally, no, but I’ve got access to the ventilation systems through here – and the heating – and in just a moment –”

“Then let me use that directly.”

Silver gave him a look that was what that suggestion deserved, even if Steel didn’t want to admit it. “Steel. You need me to regulate the temperature or –” He shrugged. “That’s another idea I don’t like. Now, come on while you can still move.”

Steel stared ahead. Silver did have a point, and he was right about this sort of thing – most of the time. He hesitated. _Are you sure?_

“What have I been saying?”

_Silver, are you sure?_

The technician nodded then, seeming to realise that it was a serious question. “Yes. I’m sure, Steel.”

“Are you ready?”

“Oh. Almost. Yes. You _can_ still move this far?”

Steel answered that by doing so, slowly and awkwardly, but he made it the few steps over and sat down beside Silver. Cautiously, he put out a hand to touch Silver’s arm, and then pulled it back.

“See?” said Silver, who had the wires wrapped around him and his back against the wall, where he’d removed the panel.

Steel shifted nearer and then put his hand on Silver’s shoulder.

“Steel. Let’s be a bit more…” Silver shot a wicked look at him, paused for thought and then finished: “… _practical_. We don’t want this to take too long, do we?”

That caused him to look at Silver. _I thought you said…_ That was partly what had alarmed him in the first place – he didn’t want to hurt Silver, even if that wasn’t entirely a pragmatic reaction. _Silver._

“I did. And I _can_ do this,” said Silver. “The sooner, the better, though.” He grinned at Steel, then leant in nearer and put his arms around him. Steel looked upward, but he moved his hand to Silver’s arm again and inclined towards him. It was… practical, yes. For now.

Once the transferred warmth had restored his usual temperature, he tilted away from Silver and got to his feet. Silver glanced upwards at him and then leant back against the wall, pushing the tangled wiring out of his way.

“You said it had done something,” Steel said, with no more comment on what had passed between them. “What?”

Silver removed one last stray wire and then looked up again. He stopped to brush back a strand of hair before answering. “Well, I don’t know, Steel. I didn’t get the chance to make a proper examination.”

“Now you can.” Then Steel paused and searched for something that covered what he wanted to say. “You are still capable?”

Silver hesitated, but then he nodded and stood. He held out his hands. “Of course.”

“Good,” he said and what might have been a smile crossed his face. “Now, get on with it.”


	15. Haunting (Sapphire, Steel)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are always so many ghosts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 83: steel & sapphire - Ghosts & Drabble. Also written for Fan_flashworks "Ghosts and Gore" challenge (Oct 2012).

You see them walking past, and they’re translucent, mere phantoms, but you’re not afraid. You’ve seen so many others. They can’t touch you, not here.

Then the woman turns. Suddenly, with eyes burning blue, she stares through the veil between you. She sees you – knows everything you are.

“Ghosts,” she says. The humour in her voice chills you. You didn’t know you could still feel fear.

“Break the link,” the man beside her says. He’s cold, dispassionate. It barely interests him.

It’s the last thing you hear before the world drowns in blue and you die a second, final death.


	16. Consequences (Copper)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s something important Copper’s forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-canon, 1860s.
> 
> Prompt 76: copper - College AU & Skeletons in the closet

There’s a woman following him. Copper waits at the corner for her. He’s curious, wondering who or what she is. She came into the shop earlier, before the assignment there was over and she must have waited out here all this time. He smiles wryly to himself: if he hadn’t come outside to ascertain that the disturbance was gone, she wouldn’t have had the chance. Perhaps, after all, he _can_ be too careful.

She is human, he’s sure of that and still fairly young, but there is something else – something that he can’t quite decipher. He wishes one of the others were here to take proper readings. This isn’t a technician’s area of expertise.

She doesn’t run, though, or try to pretend she wasn’t looking for him. She stops in front of him and gives a nervous smile. “Sir,” she says. “Mr Smith. It is, isn’t it?”

Copper looks down at her. “No.” He tries to drive her away with a patronising, human dismissal, the sort of thing she must surely expect: “You’re mistaken, my dear.”

 _But you_ are _him_ , she says in the other way, not like a human. _I know you are._

Smith. He isn’t, but once he was, or believed he was. Copper draws her to the side of the street, into the dark passageway between the houses. Something had caught him once, trapped him in a life that was not his and he had taught – he had taught this girl. And he had done that without knowing what he was… Copper looks down at her. He’s reluctant to agree; it’s an untruth, it always was, but he reaches out a hand to touch her. 

_I… was a teacher, yes_ , he returns cautiously. Then he watches her. He knows what it was he did now. It’s uncomfortably obvious. She has a small part of his abilities. It is something they can do at times. She was young when it happened and he can see that she adapted and grew around it, as young creatures often do. It is intriguing, even if it should not have occurred. “Yes. I had forgotten. And you – you were there. Anne,” he adds, finding the name.

She’s recovered some colour, he notes, although not a great deal. “I see things,” she says. “I don’t tell – they’d shut me away, wouldn’t they? But it was you, sir, wasn’t it? I knew that, but I don’t know –”

“Yes,” says Copper. “I’m sorry. It was an error.”

Anne smiles; there’s not much to her and the smile seems to shine through what there is. “You don’t have to be sorry, sir. I like it. Sometimes – sometimes it scares the lights out of me, but other times it’s – I don’t know. Seeing all the way down into things, or like I’ve got the sky in my head. I only want…” She stops again and bites her lip, the smile gone and she’s just a thin, pale human in worn clothes.

“You want to know why? Yes, I can understand that. But you can’t – you can’t keep this, you know. It isn’t safe.”

“Nothing’s safe, not really, sir,” she says, but she doesn’t argue any further, merely closes in on herself. She’s probably used to people giving her orders. She only gives a small grimace and sighs. _You have to take it away?_

“It’s imperative,” says Copper.

Anne leans against the wall and considers that for a moment. “Well, I suppose you’d know. But you tell me what it is and why first – and then you can look inside my head, seeing as you want to so badly.”

“Why not?” But he gives a slight smile and then nods for her to follow him as he follows the passage through to the court it opens into. He looks up: the nearest house is empty, for the moment at least. He takes her hand. “In here.”

She looks around her without any curiosity as they enter the house, narrow, gloomy and low-ceiled as it is. “It won’t hurt, will it, sir?”

“No,” he says and laughs at her worry. 

Anne nods then. “You said you’d show me what it all is first.”

Copper should do what must be done without delay, but he is curious and there is no reason not to answer both their questions. He’s a technician, it’s in his nature to enquire into the way things work. He hesitates, because he always tries to be careful; he doesn’t play with humans as some of his colleagues seem to, not unless he must.

“May I…?” he says, and then places his hands to either side of her head as she nods. He’s not prepared for the resulting connection; the nature of it is something unique. He’s unwittingly completed a circuit and there is power running through it, a stronger current than he had expected. He knows how a human operates in ways that none of them do, he doesn’t comprehend the way those things feel. The heart beats, blood rushes round the veins; cells part and multiply and die. Or maybe he does, somewhere; maybe the ghost of Smith is lurking. And she’s reacting to the contact in a way that’s more human than most: she wants a deeper connection yet and her desire floods his mind, a red wave that flows back and forth between them.

Copper doesn’t play with humans. He lets this carry him so far and kisses her, but halts it there. He holds the moment; becomes cold and impassive, a barrier in himself, and she steps away in shock as if she’s found herself kissing only the chilly surface of the looking glass.

She backs into the wall behind her in her haste to get away, the colour now rushing into her cheeks bright against her usual pallor. “I didn’t mean –”

“No,” says Copper, almost amused. “You didn’t mean.” He leans back against the opposite wall and watches her. “Do you understand now?”

She shakes her head. “Well. Maybe some things. Sir –”

“I’m afraid I still need to put this right,” he said. “However, I’m prepared now. If you will allow me -?”

Anne looks back at him warily and then nods. Which is as well; he has to do this no matter what she says. Then as he moves, she holds up a hand, and says, “I think – things like – there was this book in the library at my last place, when I was dusting in there once. I knew it shouldn’t be there and I couldn’t explain it. I – I burned it. I had to.”

“Then you were probably right,” says Copper and he can’t help but smile: he did teach her more than he had realised. “But that’s the sort of thing we can’t have. You don’t know what you’re doing – the danger is unimaginable.”

She looks down with a sigh so slight another human might have missed it. “Yes. I did see that, just a bit.”

“For you as much as for anything else,” he adds, although he’s realising belatedly that she’s not got so very long left. She probably doesn’t know it, not yet, but he registers now tell-tale signs from their connection, common symptoms. He’s seen them before, many times. It’s hardly surprising.

She nods. “Yes. You’d better get on with it then, sir. We shouldn’t be in here, should we?”

“No,” he says, and put his hands to her head again, this time more wary of the ready-made connection. He reverses what he’s done, carefully. The mind is delicate, complicated, and he deals more usually with inanimate pieces of technology. He can’t help taking in information, even so, though it’s an irritating distraction – he leaves such readings to others, better equipped to do so. He knows the number of her days (405) and hears the echo of her heartbeat again. He wonders how they live with an internal clock that relentlessly counts down through their days. Still, Copper is not unnecessarily cruel. He can leave a little, almost a memory of what he’d done than anything more, but if she’d said she had the sky in her head than he’s left her a speck of that – one star, you could say.

“Well,” she says with a quick, brave smile, “you were right; it didn’t hurt.”

Copper pauses. There is probably something he should say; he doesn’t know what it is.

“I –” She stops and turns around as she reaches the door. “Maybe I don’t understand and maybe I’m not like you – but thank you.”

Yes, thinks Copper, that was probably it.

And she smiles again, as if she heard.


	17. Cake (Sapphire/Silver/Steel)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a particularly draining assignment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 98: silver & steel & sapphire - Comfort food & Soulmates (mild Silver/Sapphire/Steel)

The house is quiet now. There’s a clock ticking in the other room, but not in here. The entity has gone and the building’s misplaced occupants with it. Something is still wrong, though. Sapphire leans forward against the worktop and touches it with her fingers. (Modern, but not new. There are scratches on it. Six years old.)

Steel’s sitting on a wooden chair, his back to the cupboards and the work surface, slightly hunched and staring ahead.

“Steel,” she says, softly. “Steel.” 

He glances at her and then stares ahead again. She’s not reassured. Driving it away had been difficult. He forced it back, but it has taken nearly everything from him. It’s not as bad as when he’s taken his temperature down but his strength is still at a low ebb. She doesn’t like that. She knows they’ve finished and he’ll recover, but she doesn’t like it. She twists her fingers, and waits. 

“Oh, look – cake mixture,” says Silver from the other side of the kitchen, interrupting her thoughts and fears. He smiles at her and then carries his find across, dipping his finger in along the way and examining the mixture carefully before licking it with a look of pleased accomplishment.

Sapphire smiles half-heartedly and then shakes her head.

“Steel,” says Silver. “Perhaps you –?”

“He doesn’t eat.”

“It’s matter that can be converted into energy,” says Silver. “Isn’t that what we need, Sapphire?” He pushes the mixing bowl across.

She tests it herself. “Yes,” she says, but with a haughty lack of interest. “Margarine, sugar, egg, flour, vanilla extract – fat, protein, carbohydrates –”

“Vanilla sponge,” says Silver, with a reproachful look. “Sapphire.”

Sapphire laughs, and that seems to break something around them. It took something from each of them, she realises, finally tracking down the source of her unease. It’s left a mark. Her hand as it rests on the abandoned bowl is not as steady as it should be, Steel’s weakened, and Silver… She looks at him, though he’s poking about in one of the cupboards now. Whatever it is, he’s using the nearest thing to hand to try and compensate. Cake, in this case. And they’re all avoiding speaking except out loud.

She catches her breath at that thought and finds herself wary of trying, because if she can’t – if they can’t - She does not want to think of that. And yet she is sure the entity has gone. There’s only the three of them here.

 _No_ , says Silver, his hand on her arm. _Not that. I think it took more than we realised to force it away._ And he glances down at Steel with a passing frown.

She smiles again in relief at the contact. “But you can put everything right with cake?”

“Well, not exactly,” he says and smiles back, as if she’s caught him out somehow. “It helps a little. Very nice, too.”

Cake isn’t the answer, thinks Sapphire. The answer is obvious and easy and better than cake mixture. She’s surprised Silver hasn’t already seen that. She reaches out her hand and touches Steel’s shoulder. She doesn’t need to look. She knows exactly where he is; she always does.

 _Steel?_ And she can reach him, it’s all right. She’s a little fainter than usual, but that’s all.

 _Sapphire_ , he says. _Yes_. And she breathes again, now that he’s back. 

Silver’s on the other side of him now, ostensibly leaning against the work surface but close enough so as to be touching him. Steel turns his head. _Cake?_ he says and there’s a fleeting sense of amusement that passes between them before he adds: “I told you not to touch anything. Leave it as it is.”

“That won’t stay as it is, will it?” Silver sits down beside him and puts up a hand to his arm. “It’ll decay. What I’ve left will still do that, don’t worry.”

Sapphire kisses Steel’s hair and perches improbably on the stool beside him. She glances across at him with humour lurking in her face, challenging him to object. He doesn’t, of course. She doesn’t know what Silver’s doing now, but he’s there; that’s the important thing.

Sometimes she thinks it’s as if humans knew this before they ever did: they use sapphire and steel in making expensive clocks – that amuses her. Sapphires are set in silver, and steel’s strength and durability they plate with silver for a polished finish. It’s not true, of course; it’s only an indulgent fancy.

 _But a nice thought_. Silver sounds amused again.

Sapphire closes her eyes and smiles in return. _Like cake?_

And Steel’s there, more and more there with every moment, as he ought to be – and then… She gives an inward shiver of anticipation.

 _Oh, better than cake_ , says Silver, and they’re all in silent agreement.


	18. Evasions (Steel, Copper)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steel, Copper, a book and possibly flirting…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-canon, 1850s
> 
> prompt 45: copper & steel - Missing scene & Woke up gay.

Steel turns around as Copper walks in through the door. “You’ve finished?”

“It was simple enough,” says Copper, joining Steel beside the window, looking past him and out through the small, dirty panes of glass into the street. “And now…”

Steel frowns.

“Time for other things,” Copper finishes with an amused gleam in his eyes. “Yes?”

Steel turns around and looks out through the window himself. There’s nothing to see, only a narrow street on a grey day. Then he swings back to face the other, and gives his best smile. “Why not?”

“It’s so rarely just you and me.” Copper still looks amused.

Steel watches him, but remembers to smile again. “Yes. But you did finish it, didn’t you, Copper? It’s dealt with, that page you found?”

“As I said.” Copper tilts his head fractionally, looking down at Steel. “Of course.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Then, Steel –” 

“Yes.”

Copper smiles as Steel puts a hand to his arm, and then as Steel grips him tightly and won’t let go, the smile vanishes. His arm is now white with frost around Steel’s hand and the cold is spreading.

“You’re not Copper,” Steel says. “You’re not even a very convincing copy. Copper knew what I was doing. You didn’t. You thought…” He doesn’t bother finishing the sentence. It hadn’t understood, had thought him another source of energy, probably only yet another human to draw in and use. He gives a slight, grim smile at the idea. “You were wrong.”

“Well, I trust it _was_ unconvincing,” Copper says. He’s standing behind the two of them, and he raises an eyebrow at his duplicate, now literally frozen and beginning to crack.

Steel looks almost amused. “Yes. It was.”

“I have the page for you,” says Copper. “Two pages, in fact. The missing section was the key, you were right. It contained the resolution – the nature of our troublemaker – and possibly how to deal with it. Ironically, Steel, _they_ used fire.”

“Yes.” Steel holds out a hand.

Copper cautiously passes him the two printed sheets of paper, torn at the sides and yellowing. “I made some alterations to the text, as a precaution. Once I saw it described as a shape-shifter, although –”

In Steel’s hand the paper freezes and crumbles away, the other Copper vanishing along with it. “Alterations. You confused it?”

“I must have done.”

Steel brushes the remnants of the paper from his palms. “It was –” He quirks his mouth into an expression of distaste. “- behaving not unlike Silver.”

“Like…? Oh. Flirting?” says Copper, looking as solemn as usual. “I see.”

“Not something _you_ ever do.” Steel shivers.

Copper gives him a smile. “I believe that’s what they call a generalisation, Steel. And they’re rarely true, and frequently insulting.” 

“Copper –”

“Hmm?” he returns, absently. “Oh, yes. Which brings us back to the matter in hand – we need to find a way to warm you up again, don’t you agree?”


	19. Intersection (Silver)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a stranger in her bedroom, stealing her belongings. What she’s not sure of is why she’s helping him… (Pre-canon, 1908).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 72: silver - Confession of love & Tragic past.
> 
> Teen, Silver/OFC. Warnings for vague refs to an unhappy marriage and Element/Human (and therefore some inevitable power imbalance).

She’s not sure how it happened this way, how she’s alone with a stranger in her bedroom.

“This may be enough,” he says, examining one of the candlesticks they brought with them from downstairs. The object has all his attention. “But anything else you can spare would be useful. We don’t want that thing getting loose.”

He still hasn’t explained what it is he wants to keep trapped in the next room, but she walks across to her dressing table, pulls open the drawers and takes out her cases of jewellery. She opens them up and he takes the plain necklaces of silver and gold – chains, she thinks. She always thinks of them as chains.

And is it worse, she wonders, as if she’s observing events from a distance, as she so often is, to be aiding a thief to steal her own possessions or that’s she suddenly disappointed that that’s all he wants. She’d had a very different impression when he’d taken her earrings earlier.

“Now, let’s see,” he says, picking up one of the candlesticks again, and as she watches it becomes a long, flexible silver strip in his hands.

 _“How…?_ ” she asks before she catches herself. It’s not as if she hasn’t known he wasn’t normal from the moment he walked in through the dining room wall. And he isn’t the first strange thing she’s come across in the last few days. She puts a hand to her forehead, pressing away the beginnings of yet another headache. That’s another thing that keeps happening of late.

He glances over at her but then merely repeats his action with the other candlestick.

She takes a deep breath and moves over towards the door, as if that might make it better. _Is_ she disappointed? She doesn’t want any complications; she doesn’t want anything of this nature. She had merely thought for a while that this might be something apart from everything else, something – She closes her eyes, shutting away the thought and fading back into the numbness, the perfect façade she hides behind. She raises her chin. She still has her pride, if nothing else and why she thought – 

Well, she tells herself, as long as _he_ leaves her alone, as he always does now, has done for so many years, that is all she wants.

She opens her eyes and gasps in shock to find the stranger is standing opposite her, too close for comfort. She has his attention now, though she doesn’t know why. He’s looking at her with a concern that she can’t explain: it isn’t _for_ her, she’s coldly certain of that.

“I wonder,” he murmurs, still staring at her. He catches hold of her wrist. “Perhaps… I suppose something may have drawn it here in the first place.”

She still has enough self-possession to glare back at him. “You have what you wanted. You must excuse me – my husband may wake any moment and I should –”

“No,” says the man, now returning to the strips of metal and the jewellery she’s let him have. “He won’t.”

She holds onto the door handle tightly, frozen there. “Whatever do you mean?” she asks, and keeps her voice as light as she dares.

“He won’t wake up, not for some time yet,” he says, looking up at her. “And then – when you mentioned him – that was it, wasn’t it?”

The door is a real and solid thing behind her. She leans against it and hovers on the point of saying things she’s never said. She doesn’t know what those things will be – whether she will weep, or give him an icy objection. Maybe she will run, or scream –

“Or part of it, perhaps,” he says, and turns away again, losing interest.

She closes her eyes briefly and then rubs her wrist where he held it. She’s let down again. She won’t let that show; she never does. “Well,” she says, “even if that is true, there are the servants and this is hardly –”

“Haven’t you noticed?” There’s an edge of something in his voice now – judgement, perhaps. “They aren’t here, not any more. That creature in the other room – what do you think has been happening?”

“I – I –” She draws in her breath and puts her hands to her face. She can’t remember. She knows it must be Thursday evening, but she can’t remember the pattern of the day, only a vague idea of it, as if she merely dreamt it. “I don’t know. Something is dreadfully wrong, isn’t it?”

He gets to his feet again and gives her a more sympathetic look this time. “Yes. You’re too close, of course. You would have been next.”

“Mary,” she says, fighting to remember, to register the absences. “Chambers. What do you mean? What has happened to them? Are they – are they _dead_?”

He shakes his head at her. “No, no. I shouldn’t think so. Not precisely. Now, what I need you to do is to stay here and keep this door shut. You mustn’t leave, no matter what you hear or see. You do understand?”

“I understand the instruction,” she says, attempting to regain some authority. This is her house, after all, and he is only a stranger; a thief she’s been aiding and abetting. “I don’t understand why I should –”

“Because you want to stay alive – I expect.” He faces her again. “And you certainly don’t want to meet what’s currently occupying your spare room.”

He walked in through the _wall_ , she thinks, and nods. Sometimes arguing is only a very unintelligent thing to do.

He gives a brief laugh and kisses her. “Yes, you’ll do that, won’t you?”

And then he’s gone without her even seeing how or where he went. Of course, it’s all nonsense and she should go in search of someone else, possibly even a policeman, but she doesn’t. She moves to the door and turns the key in the lock, pretending she’s not still so very aware of his touch.

There’s a sound from the next room, and she starts. It’s not something she can quite describe – a howling cry is the best she can do – and it goes through her. She shivers and as she moves over towards the bed, the electric lights – the new electric lights that _he_ is so proud of – fizzle out and fade away.

She can’t help herself – she loses her customary dignity and gives a muted exclamation and half leaps onto the bed. It’s not entirely dark – there’s a low light from the fire in the grate – but suddenly the room seems unfamiliar; this place where she’s been in darkness without thought or fear so many times before. Always honest, she wearily corrects herself; no, not without fear, never quite, even though it’s been years since _he_ troubled her. _He’s_ found compensation elsewhere, and she’s glad of it. He said once that she should do the same. She doesn’t trust that he means that, and even if he does, it’s not what she wants. She prefers to be alone.

There’s more sound from the other room and she pushes back against the pillows and the headboard and pulls the bedclothes about her. It sounds as though things are being thrown about and she hears another howl. The inhuman note in it turns her cold and she stops to wonder for the first time how something that sounds so terrifying can be stopped with only candlesticks and necklaces.

She considers running, but not for long. After all, if there was somewhere to go, she would have run away before. She huddles there on the bed, heedless of her dress for once, her arms around her knees and presses her mouth into her hand.

 

She wakes later, finding herself in an odd sideways position at the top of the bed amongst a muddle of the pillows and counterpane; her dress no doubt shockingly rumpled. It’s even darker now; the fire has died away. 

Something moves in the room and her breath catches in her throat, although she’s unsure which of her nightmares has taken shape. She strains to listen, but her heart beats too loudly for her to hear.

“I didn’t need these, after all,” says the stranger – he’s back again. He sounds as if returning stolen property in the middle of the night is a perfectly reasonable course of action. Then she feels the mattress dip as he sits on the bed. She can see him if she focuses: a grey shape in the dark room. He leans over and presses a handful of hard, fine chains into her hand. “I thought you might want them back.”

She blinks, still confused by muddled and fearful dreams, and tightens her hand around the trinkets until it hurts. 

He moves and lights the nearby candle, and then smiles at her. “It’s gone now. My colleagues – well. It’s done.”

She should demand explanations, she thinks. She should at least ask what has happened to the rest of the household. She takes a deep breath and sits up a little. “The others -?”

“They might feel unwell in the morning, perhaps, but they’re all where they should be. They won’t even remember.”

“And it’s – it’s safe now?”

He nods. “I did say, didn’t I?”

Somehow she feels foolish for asking. “Yes, but you – well, you hardly explained. You just gave me dire warnings and then you – you _left_.” She turns her head away from the candlelight. That came out oddly and she can’t help but colour. She knows she’s betrayed herself; she hopes he doesn’t.

“Did I?”

She tries to straighten herself out, but she’s stiff and still too entangled. However, she manages a spark of anger. “Yes, you did. You haven’t told me anything – not even who or what you are!”

“I’m Silver,” he says. “And it is all finished. They’re sleeping now, but it’ll all be as usual in the morning.”

 _Silver_. It isn’t a name, or not a real one, and it isn’t the morning yet; nothing is as usual. For her, this is still the same strange day where time has not behaved as it should. The house remains silent, as if under a spell. That isn’t perhaps so very far away from the truth, she thinks. They’re all sleeping. If something were to happen now, it would be different – it wouldn’t count. It’s childish reasoning, but it feels true.

He moves, and she knows he’s going to leave again, for good this time. Maybe when she wakes in the morning this will all prove to have been a dream. It will all be for the best, of course. 

“I –” She tries to say something, though and then stops. What could she possibly say? If being in this horridly improper situation isn’t encouragement enough, she thinks, what _does_ one say? _Please, do take advantage of me?_ She tries to laugh at herself.

Silver looks at her suddenly, and she turns dizzy from alarm at the idea that she has somehow spoken the words aloud. It’s another serious stare, but this time it is her he’s looking at. Then he smiles. “Yes,” he says, “why not?”

And if she didn’t say it, then how did he know? Can he read her mind? It's a frightening idea that doesn’t seem as improbable as it should, but he distracts her; gently brushing back a stray hair out of her face. Then he kisses her again, much as he did before, but this time she’s turning light-headed already.

She reaches out a hand to him instinctively, then hesitates, still unsure. He notes the movement, though and takes hold of both of her hands with a brief amused glance at her and then places them against his chest. She catches at his jacket and leans forward, holding on, because if she stops to think –

He kisses her again and then moves his hand to her hair and, as if all the pins have fallen out at once, she feels it uncoiling and falling down her back. She knows she shouldn't be this dizzy at such light touches, but if he can read her mind and transform metal, perhaps it’s not surprising. This is probably very unwise, she tells herself belatedly, but she closes her mind to that thought, and kisses him – she’s shocked at her own daring and he’s amused at that, she can tell. She doesn’t want to consider again: this is one moment, one night outside of time and reality and she wants only not to be the dutiful person she has been for every regular hour of her life.

It is still dreadfully wrong, she supposes, but how strange it is that this is the sin and not the other –

“No, no,” he says, suddenly and puts a hand over hers, as she holds onto him still – possibly too tightly, she realises. “ _Not_ that, I think.”

She’s trembling and not at all sure of the cause. “You _are_ reading my mind – you must be.” At least until now her thoughts have been her own, the only things that truly were. She does not like to be so suddenly transparent.

Silver puts his hand to her face and kisses her twice more and then touches one of her curls, winds it lightly around his finger and follows it down and further, trailing his hand along her front. “Oh, I don’t need to read your _mind_ ,” he says with a wicked look, and then laughs at her.

Yes, he seems to know all her very human reactions, but he’s only the same – amused, pleased with himself, maybe, but that’s all, not – She catches her breath; she could list her feelings now in paragraphs she despises from cheap literature, or in tired phrases that only now make full sense. It seems, she thinks, rather distantly, unfair somehow, although to which of them, she’s unsure. She _did_ ask and perhaps –

“No,” says Silver, interrupting her thoughts, and he’s laughing again, but it’s different this time; there’s more warmth in it. “Really, _no_.” Then he pulls her in closer, and then down with him - and it’s only later that she realises that he still hasn’t answered her other question.

 

The darkness is shifting to a grey light now, but she’s clinging onto wakefulness for as long as she can. She lifts her head as he moves and then sits up, startled to find that he’s suddenly fully dressed and now in a completely different suit to the one he had earlier. That was a well-cut, grey suit. He’d worn a deep red cravat. This is darker, plainer… He looks like a city clerk and that makes her want to laugh; it’s more improbable than everything else. 

“I knew you weren’t real,” she says, and thinks that she recognises her own voice again for the first time in this very peculiar day.

Silver raises his eyebrows and she thinks that he actually looks offended. “I would have thought –”

“This,” she says, and tugs at the dark tie. 

He smiles, and carefully removes the article from her hold, though he lets his hand rest on hers. “Yes. But still –”

“You’re going to vanish any moment,” she explains, lying back down. “I know that. So you can’t be real, can you?”

He pauses, and then kisses her hand before releasing it. “Well, it would be rather awkward if I was here in the morning, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” she agrees, since there is no gain in lying. She knows she’s going to sleep and she’s sure this will all be a dream of some kind when she wakes again. She doesn’t mind that, not truly – it was in part the idea – but she fears that it will rapidly fade forever from her mind, the way a dream does. She’s only surprised he’s still here. “It would be terribly scandalous – and _very_ inconvenient.”

Silver laughs. Then he catches her off-guard again, answering the question she didn’t ask. “I don’t seem to be needed.” He doesn’t add ‘luckily for you’; he doesn’t have to. 

“What was in the other room?” she asks. “This is where I live; I should know.”

“You don’t want to.”

She opens her mouth to object: after all, knowing cannot be worse than sitting in the dark and wondering.

“I would have to show you,” says Silver. “And that… I think you don’t need any more nightmares.”

She looks away, irrationally ashamed that her private troubles are so obvious. She thinks instead to ask something she failed to before: “Did it hurt you?”

“No,” he says. “No. And,” he adds, as if in payment for her concern, “it’s not reading your thoughts, not exactly. But – like this – it’s rather difficult _not_ to pick up some things.”

She bites her lip, and wonders about asking more. She knows her reasons for doing this; she’s not at all sure of his. It’s not in any way a solution of course, only the most temporary escape. She looks up as she thinks it and sees his reaction – he _did_ hear that – and for a moment they are in complete accord. It is no doubt not all of the answer, but it is in part and that will suffice.

“You’re very…” he hesitates and then laughs at her again, kisses her once more. “Very sweet.”

And that’s all perfectly nice, but it’s also a closing down of the conversation; the last thing she remembers before she finally falls asleep.

 

When she wakes again it’s fully morning. The sun is trying to break in through the heavy curtains, enough for her to see that her room looks exactly as it should. She sits up. There aren’t any empty jewellery cases out on the dressing table, and her gown isn’t lying somewhere on the floor. The house feels… She draws in a breath because the change isn’t something she can explain in words, but there’s more sound and life surrounding her – a shadow has gone.

And then Mary arrives, with morning tea and inconsequential discussion about the bright weather, and which clothes she should wear today. She doesn’t seem to have any idea that yesterday was anything other out of the usual, and there are no remarks about unwonted carelessness to dresses. 

Yesterday, it seems, was like any other day in this house. She’s the only one who knows otherwise.


	20. Snow White, Blood Red (Steel, Ruby)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby and Steel, snowed in with something malevolent and hidden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-canon, 1840s
> 
> Prompt 2: ruby & steel - Mindgames & Snowed in. (Ruby is another OC, not the Big Finish version. )

“What’s that?” Ruby is immediately at Steel’s side, clutching at his arm.

Steel glares at her. “The wind, probably. Something outside. You know that.”

“Oh, well,” says Ruby and perches herself on the bare wooden table, giving a pout. Then she tilts her head and looks back up at him. She matches her surroundings in her own way, wearing a deep red skirt, white apron and embroidered black bodice. There’s even a red rose in her long brown hair. She raises an eyebrow at him, sensing that he’s watching her for once.

“It’s winter,” he says with a nod at the flower. Any vegetation of that sort will be dead or lost under the snow that continues to fall outside.

Ruby pulls the rose out and twists it around in her hand before it vanishes. “It’s only us, Steel. You can be _tiresome_ , you know.”

She’s here in this cottage, deliberately trying to be rustic in an idealised, artistic way that no one who’s lived here has ever been. And, as she smiles back at him now, he catches the amusement in her expression and knows the outfit is in part a mockery. 

“Only us,” she repeats, more hopefully. “For five hours, twenty-three minutes and six seconds.”

He runs a hand over the walls: wood and plaster still, nothing more. “Then keep looking.” They came here to deal with the threat of a time break, something that had turned out to be dark memories – ghosts perhaps – lurking in five objects. They’ve dealt with them all, but there must be one remaining or they would be able to leave. It’s not the snow that’s keeping them here; it’s something worse.

“There’s nowhere else to search,” she says. “Steel. If we stop, maybe it will make a move. And in the meantime, there _are_ more interesting things we could do.”

Steel only gives her a look. She should know him well enough by now to know that he isn’t going to cease or rest until the assignment is finished.

Besides, it’s hard to explain, but Ruby and Jet have a disconcerting manner of behaving as if there’s some secret joke going on between them. Even when – as far as he knows – they can’t have spoken in months, years even. He pulls a brief grimace as he examines a roughly-made wooden chair. 

“The snow,” says Ruby, walking across to the window. She looks back at him. “Steel, you mustn’t get too cold. Think what might happen.” She’s instantly next to him again, giving him a concerned look as she puts her hand to his arm.

“I’m fully in control of my body temperature,” he says, moving away.

Ruby sits on the table again and swings her legs. “Well, Jet said –”

“You can’t have seen Jet,” he says in frustration. 

Her mouth curves into a slightly crooked smile, as she shakes dark hair back from her face. _We don’t need to see each other._

“You’ve checked everything?” he asks yet again.

Ruby leans back. “Yes. Everything. There’s nothing here, Steel. Not even a crumb of dry bread in the cupboards. In the time we’ve been here, I’ve examined every object, all the walls, the floor. Everything. I even checked _you_ and I hardly –”

They both see it at the same moment – the one thing that’s missing from her list. She gasps out and slips off the table, into his hold.

 _It’s in me?_ She bites her lip and closes her eyes. “Steel, it is. It has to be. That’s why I couldn’t see it.”

He experiences a rare sense of helplessness. She’s the one who can find these things and in any case he’s not sure how it could be extracted from her. He could probably destroy her, but that’s hardly an ideal solution.

Ruby smiles at him then, a dangerous smile this time. “Don’t worry, Steel. I can deal with it. Only –” She hesitates and gives him a wary look.

“What?”

“Keep holding onto me,” she says. “Steel. Keep me here.”

Steel pauses. “Ruby. If this is one of your games –”

“I’m serious,” she says. He can feel the deep sense of alarm within her and doesn’t need to ask again. “If you don’t, I won’t be able to come back.”

Steel would like to object – he has issues with Ruby’s recklessness and taste for the dramatic, but she knows what she’s doing here. Besides, best not to give the thing any more warning. “Yes. I’ll hold on.”

“Good,” she says and then instantly keels over in his arms. Her skin rapidly loses its colour, paling to grey-white. She breathes out and not in and her human form is a dead weight in his hold. Beneath her, on the packed-dirt floor, he realises there’s a small, growing pool of red blood. And as that continues to fall, everything that she is leaks out of her.

With that, with her essence, goes the last memory. He feels rather than sees it: there’s a snap around him, as if ice has suddenly melted and cracked somewhere and the barrier keeping them here is gone. The room seems lighter, indefinably more real. And colder, he notes. There’s a warmth in Ruby’s presence, but now there’s nothing here but winter.

He stays there with what’s left of her, counting out the minutes as snow continues to fall outside. He wonders if it might bury them both before it’s done. He holds on for an hour, two hours, three hours. Three hours, eight minutes and he’s still standing in an empty cottage with nothing more than a corpse in his arms. The coldness seems to be increasing.

Is there something he can do to help? he wonders. If she asked him to do this, then she must have left some vital part of herself in him. He can’t sense that or pass it back, but he considers that if that is so, then more contact might help, so he kisses her – awkwardly from this position, catching her on the corner of her forehead.

 _I win_ , says Ruby somewhere, faintly, but he’s not imagining it. _Tell Jet, won’t you?_

“Tell her yourself.”

And Ruby breathes in, the blood vanishes and the pallor leaves her face. Then she blinks and slowly gives a smile. “Yes. I will. Although I didn’t intend to go to such drastic lengths.” She lets him help her stand again. “Not even for you, Steel.”

“You stopped it,” he says. “It went hours ago – we’re free to leave this place.”

“Oh, Steel. When things were _finally_ getting interesting…”

“Ruby –”

She gives a less certain smile than usual. “Oh, don’t worry. I don’t really want to stay here, either.”

“Not very appealing, is it?” he says.

Ruby looks over to the frosted pane of the window. “Too cold,” she agrees. “Let’s go somewhere warmer.”


	21. Small Troubles (Jet/Ruby/Silver)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jet, Ruby and Silver are in a tight situation and there’s only one thing left to do…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-canon, 1950s.
> 
> Prompt 26: ruby & silver & jet - Unresolved Sexual Tension & We're all going to die!

“This is it, then,” said Jet, as the room around them shrunk by another two millimetres in all directions. “It really is.”

Ruby nodded. She was standing directly opposite her colleague, so close there was barely any distance between them. “I think it must be. Jet –”

 _Yes_. Jet kissed her fellow Element on the nose and took both of her hands in hers. “And there are some things we have never tried –”

_That is tragic._

_Humans can be very inventive_ , Jet agreed. _And if we’ve nothing else to do –_

“Excuse me, but there _is_ something,” said Silver, looking down at them from where he was standing on the dining table. It was positioned at the centre of the room – the cubic of space of which had shrunk yet again – and he was working on the cable the light bulb had been hanging from before he’d removed it. “Jet?”

Ruby ignored him and kissed Jet. _And then… whatever do they do next?_

“I’m sure Silver would know,” said Jet solemnly, and the two of them looked up at him.

Silver raised his eyebrows. “Or, Jet, you could help me get us out of here. Come on!”

“This place is sealed,” said Ruby.

Jet leant against Ruby. “I checked, Silver.”

“You and I don’t look for the same things,” said Silver, and held out his hand to her. She gave a quick smile and leapt onto the table beside him. “If the statue – or whatever’s inside it – has us trapped here, then we must still be connected to it – perhaps in the same room. And this cable _is_ real, so if you can provide me with a small electrical charge it should be enough for me to get us back. That should give _it_ something of a shock as well.”

Ruby appeared on the other side of Jet. “Oh, Jet can _certainly_ do that.”

 _Of course_. Jet glanced at the walls, which were fractionally nearer again and abandoned her apparent frivolity, taking hold of Silver’s hand even as Ruby reached out to grab hers. There were suddenly sparks about them, and then, a brief blackness, before they found themselves back in the room of the old house, sitting semi-tangled together on the worn floorboards with the statue in pieces around them.

“Oh, well _done_ , Silver,” said Jet, and then looked over at him, and grinned. “Ruby, he’s all singed at the edges. We must be too much for him.” She pushed against him briefly, before pulling away, and standing.

“Jet –”

“Don’t worry, Silver,” said Ruby, and kissed his head, before she moved away, too, crawling forward to pick up one of the shards of pottery. “You’re still our favourite technician.”

“That’s going a bit far, isn’t it?” Jet said, turning back.

“Well, for today, then.”

Silver twisted about to look from one to the other, and attempted a stern expression, and failed. Those two, and their games… “You were trying to distract me, weren’t you?”

“Oh, I would have said if you hadn’t spotted the cable,” Jet assured him. “And, Ruby – this time I win.”

Ruby inclined her head and gave a small smile of acknowledgement.

“Well,” said Silver, “shall we make sure this little problem really is finished?”

Ruby nodded and tightened both her hands around the largest remaining piece of it. She was entirely serious now. _Yes. Whatever is inside it…_ Her eyes darkened from brown to black at the thought of what she’d touched before. _It mustn’t be allowed out._

Jet put a hand to her arm. “And is it gone? Did we destroy it?”

“Yes,” said Ruby, and shook herself, the moment of gravity passed again. “It is. Which means –”

Jet laughed.

“Yes,” Ruby said, as she decided to stretch herself out on the old rug behind her. “Jet had a very good question, before. I believe it’s still in need of an answer…”


	22. Daylight Robbery (Silver, Copper, Jet)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silver’s got a history with royal residences – and royal property.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 97: silver - Snowed in & Noodle incident. 
> 
> All incidents referred to in here, barring two which are my own invention, involve actual historical or legendary items.

Jet put her hand to the glass of the window, looking upward and outward. “I don’t think this snow is natural.”

“Interesting,” said Silver, moving across the room to peer out over her shoulder. “Worrying, perhaps. And it does seem to be getting worse.”

Copper was surveying the interior of the building with misgivings. It was old, older than most houses, with large rooms, full of faded furniture and aged grandeur. “Hmm. I hope this isn’t a palace, or something of that nature. It could be. It’s certainly not an ordinary residence.”

“Does that make a difference?” Jet asked. “Something to do with the trigger, you think?”

“Not as far as I know,” said Copper, and glared at his other colleague. “It’s likely, of course. However, if it is, Silver, you should be careful for once.”

“I wasn’t doing anything,” said Silver, leaning against the panelled wall and looking hurt. “Yet.”

“You have a history with these sorts of places,” Copper pointed out. “As we both know. Remember, Silver, to check with me before you remove any items. It may be tiresome, but the disappearance of objects that have significance to a large number of people can become a potential trigger in itself.”

Silver raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know what you mean. I have never –”

“That business with the diamonds,” Copper reminded him.

Jet grinned. “Oh, yes. I was there. That castle by the river, with the crown –”

“I was trying to reduplicate a safe copy precisely because I knew that particular diamond _would_ be missed,” Silver said, frowning at the unfairness of the accusation. “It wasn’t my fault that it proved so uncooperative and the rest of the collection – ah – rather less so.”

Jet leant against him briefly, a teasing push. “Took some sorting out, though, didn’t it? They thought they must be forgeries and then we had to –”

“No, no,” said Copper. “The necklace, Silver. About twenty or so years ago – some distance from here – a warm country, nothing like this.”

Silver pulled out his handkerchief and became absorbed in polishing one of his tools.

“Necklace?” asked Jet, her mouth twisting into a smile. “Silver.”

“Diamonds,” Silver said crossly, “aren’t easy to come by when you need them. And I left the ones we weren’t using. What else did you expect me to do?”

Copper glared at him. “It’s still careless. It was missed. You could at least have put it back in its place or made a copy.”

“There was thing with that woman’s skirt,” added Jet. “She was a queen, wasn’t she?”

“There _was_ a reason for that!”

“And was there a reason for the set of crown jewels you removed from the safe?” Copper asked. “If I had known that was what you were doing –”

“Yes, you’d have interfered, no doubt,” said Silver. “No one was using them and they were precisely what we wanted. You shouldn’t worry so much, Copper. I know what I’m doing.”

“You think you do, which isn’t the same thing.” Copper turned around. “And those eggs. There was no excuse for that.”

“Eggs?” said Silver and looked genuinely baffled for a moment, before he gave a laugh. “Oh, _those_. Well, they were _very_ pretty, and no one was looking after them properly.”

Copper remained unamused. “Nevertheless, I want to see any items before you remove or alter them.”

“There was another set of crown jewels, wasn’t there?” Jet put in. “Lead said, a century or so ago –”

“Well, it would be truer to say that we rescued those,” said Silver. “Copper, you remember? We merely took them from the thieves – soldiers –”

Copper moved over. “Silver. My point remains. After all, do I need to remind you of what happened the first time?”

“The first time?” Silver said, as he replaced his handkerchief in his pocket. 

“A long time ago, I know,” said Copper, “but you haven’t changed, Silver. And I haven’t forgotten.”

“Oh, I’m sure you haven’t,” said Silver, flickering a dark glance at his fellow technician. “You never do.”

“I asked you to dispose of that sword safely. After I had ascertained that the problem lay with the rock itself rather than the weapon, you removed it and then what did you do?”

“Well, somebody wanted it,” said Silver, with a shrug. “It seemed like the easiest solution. You know, I’ve never understood why everyone made such a fuss about that...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The missing items referred to (though it goes slightly against the spirit of the prompt):  
> 1\. Diamond necklace belonging to the Maharaja of Patiata (c. 1948)  
> 2\. Theft of the Irish crown jewels from a safe (1907)  
> 3\. 8 missing Faberge eggs, formerly belonging to the Tsars of Russia (c.WWII)  
> 4\. Polish crown jewels, stolen by German soldiers in 1809 and never found. 
> 
> I'm sure I don't need to explain the last one, merely apologise for the silliness.


	23. Imaginary (Copper)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Copper’s only here to fix a fault in the wiring, but the fault seems to have other ideas – and there’s an unwanted young human in the way…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 9: copper - Vampires & Soulmates

Copper walked into the bedroom, trailing a length of wire after him. He ignored the girl inside, though she looked up in indignant surprise at his entry. Instead, he felt his way along the wall, running his hand over the patterned green wallpaper until he found what he was looking for, and paused at the photograph hanging in the centre there. He gave a short smile of satisfaction.

“What are you doing?” asked the girl, standing up behind him and putting her hands on her hips with a scowl. “That’s mine. You can’t do that –”

Copper reached out for the photograph even as the dark-haired young man pictured in it appeared in front of him, at first transparent and then gradually solidifying.

“Didn’t you hear her?” the figure said, and leant back against the wall with an irritating smile. “It’s not _your_ property. Hands off.”

The girl folded her arms now. “You should go. I heard my Dad saying he was going to phone the police about you. I expect he has by now.”

“You don’t have a phone,” said Copper, momentarily amused. He kept his attention on the other, however; the man who should not be there.

“He’ll have gone next door,” she said, only wavering for a moment. “They’ve got one. So there.”

“And let’s hope so,” said the young man, straightening himself up and facing Copper with no fear in his face, only a sneer. “I know what you are. You’re a murderer.”

Copper tutted. “Hardly. Only a technician.”

“You’ve come to take my life,” the other said. “But you can’t. Nobody can.”

Copper sighed. He would much prefer to do his work without interference. He should call for the other two, he thought, but the bedroom door slammed shut and when he tried to contact his colleagues, there was no reply. 

“Yes, very melodramatic,” said Copper. “Not to mention tiresome - and incorrect on several points. I’m merely here to fix a fault in the wiring. Now, excuse me –” 

He leant over and attached the end of the long wire to the photograph’s frame and concentrated on the connection. _Now_ , he said, under his breath, and the picture fell to the floor, the image on it having vanished. It was only a framed white piece of photographic paper. 

The young man, however, was still there, which was worrying. Copper turned around and looked at the girl properly for the first time. She looked fairly ordinary, as far as he could tell. She was somewhere around fifteen, resolutely sturdy, with her mousy hair in plaits and wearing a navy school uniform.

“I belong here,” said the young man, with another disdainful look at Copper. If anything, he was solidifying further. “You don’t.”

This was a nuisance, thought Copper. He’d done his part and removed the source of the irregularity. If this creature or human was using the girl – stealing a life that had decades left to it, yes, Time would like that – it was up to the other two to finish things, not him.

“Why did you spoil my photo?” asked the girl. “You can’t just walk in and do that!”

“Something was making use of it,” Copper said, with a look at the young man. “It was dangerous. It needed to be dealt with. A lot of things do.”

“How true.” The man – no, the creature that was currently shaped like a man – moved forward. Copper edged back but somehow the other was faster than he was. The man gave a sudden smile and plunged his hand right _through_ Copper to grip at the wiring that still hung down the wall.

Copper gasped out and arched back against the wall, sparks going off in his mind and his breath ragged in an uncomfortably human way. He stared upwards, blankly and failed to call for the other two again.

“ _No_ ,” said the girl. Copper could hear her dimly, but the panic in her voice was clear: there was a high-pitched note in it and a tremor that had not been there before. “No! What are you _doing_?”

Copper forced himself to concentrate and looked at her, ignoring the other who was holding him there and laughing silently – stealing mass and energy from him, too, no doubt. He held out his hand. _You want me to help you, don’t you? I think you know what’s happening…_

He didn’t know if he could reach her, limited as he was in non-technical matters, but she leapt forward and grabbed at his arm, and then swung around to face the man from the photograph. “Stop it!”

“It’s him or me,” the creature said, without looking at her. “And you want me, here; you certainly don’t want him…”

Copper gripped the girl’s hand. _Close your eyes_ , he ordered. _Hold onto me and think about anything but that creature – that man. Otherwise, he’ll destroy us both. Do you understand?_

She nodded, and did as he asked, taking a deep breath and turning her face in against him. Copper focused on the wire – the wire he had brought in here – and used the power in it to administer a shock to the man, who fell back and, then, realising he had lost his connection to the girl, evaporated into smoke.

“B-but that wasn’t supposed to happen,” the girl said, moving away again, and kneeling on the carpet where the man had been. “I – I – we were supposed to be together.”

“No. You’d have been dead,” said Copper, distracted by looking about him. The creature could not be gone. He still couldn’t sense anything outside of the room and when he tried the door, it wouldn’t open. He turned back to the girl.

She was back on her feet now. “You killed him,” she said, sounding sulky. “You _killed_ him.”

“He was stealing your life. He couldn’t stay,” he returned, dispassionately. “Now, tell me –”

She stepped backwards, away from him. “I don’t know. I don’t know, but he was supposed to be with me – and you come along and ruin everything and – and he’s not some kind of vampire!”

“He hasn’t gone,” said Copper, catching hold of her shoulder. A vampire, he noted with interest. A monster out of a human tale – he vaguely knew that they were the ones who were supposed to drink blood. He had, as ever, more cause to know about human nightmares than much of the rest of their lives. “Now, stop and tell me how it happened. You knew what he was already, I think. Why else did you do as I asked – and why did that come so quickly into your mind?”

The girl swallowed. “I – I – it was only a story I made up. It couldn’t be real.”

“No,” said Copper. “But it tried to be. It’s still here, though – either in something, or in someone.”

“Good,” she said, though she was shaking. “He was supposed to stay and –”

“It was all going to be very romantic, yes,” said Copper, with an air of waving unimportant matters aside. Then he stopped and looked at her more carefully. “He was supposed to stay and -?”

“We were going to stay together. We were meant to be together for always –”

It wasn’t entirely her speaking, he realised and tightened his hold on her. “Yes, I see,” he said, more softly. “I think I understand. But it was only a story, you said? A story. Did you write it down?”

She stared back at him and he sensed a battle within; things she wanted to say and couldn’t. Yes, it was still inside her, or closely linked to her. He needed the others. He didn’t have the skills to take such information from a human, not like this.

“What’s your name?” he asked, since he must try nevertheless.

She stared downwards and muttered something that sounded like Diana or Dinah. He decided on the latter.

“Dinah,” he said, and remembered to try a smile. “Now, you want to help me, don’t you? And it won’t hurt to tell me how it began. You can do that.”

She shrugged. “It was an old photo. I liked it, that’s all. And I was –” She hunched herself in further. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You wrote it down,” he said. “Where did you write it?”

Dinah shuffled slightly and then gave a nod under her bed. “In my diary,” she said. “But –”

Copper crossed the small room in one long stride, and knelt down by the side of the bed to get at the book.

“I only made up a story because there wasn’t anything else to do – and they make me go to that _stupid_ school. They make us do typing there. I hate typing. And there’s no one to do anything with. There’s only Susan from over the road, and she’s useless.” She sounded breathless, as if she was talking to distract it now.

Copper took little notice, pulling out the battered diary. He looked across at the fire. It was unlit, but he could soon fix that, he thought, and the flames shot up in the grate.

“No!” she said, when she saw what he was doing. She rushed at him, trying to pull him arm back, but too late. “Oh, you _beast_! You rotten pig! How could you?”

Copper turned around and glared at her. “That should have saved your life.”

She shook her head, and tried to choke back and emotion – tears or anger or both, he wasn’t sure. “My present from my Nan was in it – a whole pound note!”

Copper looked down at the book and the flames now eating it, and then back at the girl. “Ah. I see.”

“I’d been saving it up,” she said, and sat down on the bed with a despondent thump and a sigh. 

“However, you are still alive,” said Copper, “and I could probably –” He put his hand near to the grate and the note reappeared between his fingers. “Ah. Yes, I can reduplicate that safely at least. Here.” 

She breathed out. “Oh,” she said. “Thank goodness! Mum would have been so cross if I’d lost it. I couldn’t have explained, could I?”

“Now,” said Copper, “more importantly, is the creature gone?”

Dinah looked up, and coloured. “Oh. I – I’m sorry. I – I think so. It made things go very odd but they seem normal now. I don’t have to say – silly things.”

“Good,” said Copper, stopping to pick up what was left with the photograph. 

She sniffed and rubbed her face. “You’re a very odd person. I don’t know what you’re doing here, either.”

“I,” said Copper, “am only a technician here to fix a fault. It’s done, and I shall go.”

She bit her lip. “Oh. I don’t think I understand.”

“Probably not.”

“And I’m sorry for saying you were a beast – and – and all those things. I didn’t mean them. But it _was_ my present and you _could_ have listened.”

“Yes.”

She shuffled about on the bed, untidying the eiderdown. “Thank you,” she muttered, looking down.

Copper removed the length of wiring, rolling it up. “And if anything in a photograph talks to you again, I suggest you don’t talk back.”

“Electricians don’t do things like you did. I know that.”

Copper gave a sudden smile. “I said a technician, not an electrician. There’s a difference.”

“Was it a ghost, that – that person?”

“It’s best not to think about it now it’s over. It’s safer that way. If you’ve anything else you want to ask, I expect my colleagues will be here shortly.” Copper double checked the wire, before putting it into his jacket pocket.

“An evil spirit or something?”

“I said,” Copper returned. “Don’t think about it and don’t ask questions. It’s over. Best to forget all about it.”

“If it was an evil spirit,” she said, frowning and kicking her feet, “would that make you an angel?”

Copper raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t help but be amused. “You think I look like one?”

She coloured. “Well, no, but then if they’re real, they’re either invisible or else they’d have to look ordinary so we wouldn’t notice. So it’s not all that silly.”

“Yes,” said Copper with a brief smile. “However, I’m a technician – and now I’ve fixed the fault in the wiring, I shall be going. Good luck with your – ah – your typing, was it?”

She sniffed. “Yes, but I hate it. _And_ the shorthand. And the whole silly, rotten school!”

“How odd,” said Copper, as he headed out of the door, “if you like writing things down, I’d have thought you might find it useful.” 

He went in search of the other two and hoped that next time they would be on hand to deal with any awkward humans. It wasn’t his field at all.


	24. Between the Covers (Sapphire, Steel, Silver)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sapphire and Steel, trapped inside the pages of a book

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 88: steel & sapphire - Breaking the fourth wall & Everyone thinks they're doing it.

They are nothing but words now, he and she, mere paper and ink. The book had been blank when she had opened it and the two of them had been drawn in and caught on its pages. Words and letters that can be endlessly shifted, rearranged and rebuilt into new patterns and meanings.

The story that had escaped them now had reshaped itself around them – a tired old story. Sapphire wishes it could be something more interesting, if they’re going to be here as long as the volume survives.

She searches through the words, looks past the text and its surface meanings to find him. Steel. He’s still here; she knows it’s him no matter how the letters confuse her. She can reach him when she tries.

The story tells itself again and again; she and he lost in one scene, wrapped in uninspired words. The only amusement even Sapphire can find this time is Steel’s distaste for the subject matter.

(“There’s nothing romantic about history,” he’d said, before it happened, when they’d been chasing the story. “Nothing’s changed that much.”

“That’s not the point,” she’d told him, but she’d agreed. The past is only what was once the present, nothing more or less wonderful than the current ‘now’. The past as the past is dangerous as they both know.)

They try inhabiting the characters themselves, but there’s not much life beyond the words, not in these two.

 

“Release me this instant,” Alice said haughtily. “Otherwise I shall – I shall scream!”

 

The dress, thinks Sapphire, is beautiful at least. Historically inaccurate and terribly impractical, of course, but she likes it all the more for that. It’s not her colour, though.

 

Henry only sneered at her. “It’s what everyone else thinks, my dear. Why shouldn’t it be true?”

“How dare you make such assumptions -!”

 

 _Sapphire, is there any point?_ Steel asks, as the story reaches what Sapphire feels is the only interesting section. _We know what happens. We’ve been through this enough times. Try something else. Can you adjust the text – create some words of your own?_

Sapphire considers that. Yes. She can. Of course. She can create a message of her own and insert it into the story. 

_It escaped_ , Steel reminds her. _So can we. As long as somebody ever wants to read... this again._

Whatever there is of her here, smiles inwardly at his disgust. Then she makes the attempt and shapes her own words out of the letters available:

 

Dear Reader, my name is Sapphire. My colleague and I are trapped inside this book. Please read the following words aloud. This is very important…

 

***

This particular reader closes the book at those words and kisses its cover before slipping it inside his pocket. He has been searching through the library for hours, and even he had begun to wonder if there had been some mistake. He pats that pocket again with a satisfied smile and then walks away from the shelves.

“Sir,” says the librarian, catching him on his way towards the door. “Excuse me, but –”

He turns and gives her his best smile. “Oh, yes, I’m sorry. I forgot. Thank you for your help – very kind of you.”

“Sir…?” she says again, suddenly unsure.

“That’s quite all right,” he adds, touching her arm lightly, and then makes his escape through the main doors.

***

Silver’s careless with the words as he reads silently, trying to extract them with a little more precision than Sapphire’s message allows for, but he’s only concerned for his colleagues, not the tiresome story.

The end result is one hundred percent less Sapphire and Steel inside the battered paperback, but any future readers will search in vain for commas and wonder at the ice-cream, the pelican and the large red noses.

And, just to be on the safe side, he pockets the final page. He thinks it’s better that way.


	25. Memory (Lead, Ruby, Copper)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He thinks of her every time he hears the song…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 15: lead & ruby & copper - Confession of love & Timeloops

He thinks of her every time he hears the song. He wants that moment back more than any other – and that song, the song that was playing, the song that stole her attention – it won’t let him go.

Every time he hears the song, he thinks of her.

*

“You’ve got that thing in pieces – and it’s still playing?”

Copper does not glance up from his careful deconstruction of the radio. “Yes.”

Lead gives a laugh.

“Something else is playing the song through its speakers,” Copper adds.

“You can still stop it, though? I know you can, Copper.”

“I can take everything apart,” Copper says, “but if it isn’t the source of the problem –”

Ruby is suddenly with them again. “The source is a human. A memory.”

*

He knows now what he would have said, what he should have said, what he has said over and over as he replays the scene in his head.

Every time he hears the song.

Every time.

He hears the song.

*

“Find him,” says Ruby, to Lead. “He’s here somewhere – and where he is, that’s where it will be.”

“I’ll hunt them out, don’t worry.” Lead grins at her and shares none of the alarm the other two are displaying. He only puts a hand to her shoulder before he goes and a fleeting smile crosses her face.

Then Ruby crouches down, pushing a long curl out of her face. “Copper.”

Copper pauses in his efforts to disable the radio and looks at her, raising an eyebrow in query.

“You can’t stop the song if the problem isn’t in the machine,” she says, “but could you use it to play something else instead?”

Copper considers the proposition. Then he looks back down at the components lying around him and gives a slow smile. “Yes. I should be able to do that.”

“On my word then, Copper,” says Ruby and there’s an amused glint in her eyes.

*

He hears the song and the words run through his head. He has a feeling this has happened over and over since he walked in here. And now she’s here. He doesn’t know how, but she’s standing in front of him in the empty building, just as she had all that time before when everything had been different.

“She isn’t real,” says someone else, someone who’s suddenly standing beside him. “Something else is wearing her face, using your memories.”

He breathes in shakily, but he can see the void in her eyes. It’s not quite right; it’s not _her_.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” he tries to say. 

The stranger is closer now, and she puts a hand on his arm. “I don’t think that’s quite true, is it? You believed in this one enough to make her appear.”

“I –” He cannot explain what it is that drew him here, what made him think of her. He can still hear the song, somewhere.

She moves her hand to take his now. “Say it,” she says, as if he had managed to tell her. “What you wanted to say. Break this endless circle.”

He doesn’t want to, not in front of the stranger, not in this unreal situation, but the song starts again.

He thinks of all the things he could have said, but what emerges from his mouth isn’t any of those, only the blunt truth. He loved her. He always had. He didn’t want her to go. He’d think of her every time he heard that song.

“Yes,” says the stranger and releases his hand.

The song is drowned out by something else, music he doesn’t really recognise – something old fashioned, some classical waltz, not his sort of thing – and the memory fades away. Now he can’t hear it, he starts and looks about him, unsure why he’s even here. 

“A song played over and over,” the unfamiliar woman in red says, “taking you back to a moment in time. The same moment, over and over. A trigger – potentially a very powerful one.”

“There was something – someone – here –”

“It’s gone now.”

He shakes his head to clear it and moves away. It’s gone and he should go, too. He doesn’t know what brought him here. Snatches of a song, but all he can hear now is that blasted waltz. It was nothing; it doesn’t matter.

“Yes,” she says, the stranger. “Yes.”

And then the music stops and finally there is silence.

*

_Lead?_

_I got it_ , he tells her. _Nothing left of it by the time you’d finished. Just a shadow in the corner. Faded right away in front of me._

 _Disappointed, are you?_ Ruby says. _Not enough of a challenge for you? Is anything, Lead?_

Lead’s laughter echoes through her mind and Ruby grins. She likes the way that feels.

“That was satisfactory?” Copper asks from the other side of the room where he’s busy reassembling the radio. “Yes?”

Ruby moves across lightly, and then drops a kiss on his head, something that earns her a distracted frown from the technician. “It was perfect, Copper.”

“The human?”

“He’s already forgotten,” Ruby says with a shrug. “Memory is a strange thing, after all.”


	26. Wired (Jet/Copper)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was lurking in the wiring…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt 1: jet & copper - Hero and sidekick & Turning to the dark side

It was lurking in the wiring. 

Jet set her face and stretched her hand out, palm-first, towards the television screen which was the central focus point. The screen’s cloudy grey images dissolved into static at her touch and Jet’s eyes turned completely black as she absorbed the power.

She didn’t need Copper to retrieve Lead, after all. She could see how it all connected, how it all worked. The electricity felt like long fingers at her command – she could stretch out and touch anything along the wiring. She controlled the building and she could release the locking mechanisms and let Lead back inside.

However, she remembered her purpose here and concentrated hard. She opened herself up further; allowed it in. She only had to lure it on, distract it, isolate it here, in the television. Copper and Lead would do the rest.

She hadn’t anticipated, though, the level of power within her as she remained connected to it. It crossed a threshold into something she had not imagined and she gasped. It filled her and she could do _anything_. She didn’t need Lead back in the house, she could destroy Copper – and demolish the house if she wished. Not merely the house, but the town and beyond. She raised her head and sparks danced about her. She couldn’t keep from laughing aloud at how it felt.

“I’ve disconnected the main cable,” said Copper from behind her. “And Lead’s here – somewhere downstairs. What next, Jet?”

Jet regained some measure of control of herself, though she was dizzy at the effort and at the power still inside her. Copper was as prosaic as ever. So ordinary. If she finished him now, she could keep this. _No_ , she told herself, fighting it. _No._

“Jet?”

She stared ahead, still facing the television. _Copper. Take my hand._

“Jet?” he said again.

 _No time to explain_. Copper could help to channel it. No one else could deal with electrical problems as he could. _Take it. Take the power. Help me finish this._

Copper didn’t ask again. He moved around to the front of her and first reached down for the television cable before walking back around her to place his hands on her shoulder, the wire trailing behind him.

Now Jet could channel and direct the power she had taken, deprive it of its source and allow Copper to remove it. The television screen fizzled out into a blank greyness before it blackened in the centre and began to smoke and finally to destroy itself in a half-hearted explosion. It was gone and the power was dissipating. Jet knew she could stop, and she sagged back against Copper.

 _Has it damaged you?_ Copper paused then, before adding: _It has gone, hasn’t it?_

Jet smiled and nodded, but she was shaken by how strong the pull had been, the lure of power itself. She hadn’t been entirely herself, of course, but even so…

“Power does strange things,” said Copper. “Even to us. But you made the right choice – didn’t you?”

“I know. It was just… unexpected.”

“Is it done? I made sure it couldn’t slip away back down the wiring, but I can’t tell beyond that, not without examining things.”

“Of course it is,” Jet said. “I don’t know how you couldn’t tell. It fought me till it was nothing.” She didn’t need to remain where she was now, but she wanted to.

“I should check,” said Copper. Methodical, careful Copper. “Nevertheless, I’m sure you’re right. And we should probably find Lead.”

Jet laughed, but quietly. “Oh, I let him in, like you said. I expect he’s in the kitchen while he has the chance.”

“Odd how he does that.”

“No. It’s how he is,” said Jet. She refused to move yet. It dawned on her after a few moments that Copper hadn’t tried to, either. Perhaps he didn’t want to break the connection they had made any more than she did. But he would soon, she knew, so she saved him from that. “You should check me first. Make sure there’s no trace of it. You can do that.”

Copper nodded. “Yes.”

Careful, methodical Copper. Of course he could.

“Go on, then,” she said.

“You are the Operator, so –”

Jet grinned to herself. “I am, yes. So go on, Copper.”

“I think,” he said with a note of amusement in his voice that ran through her mind as he spoke, “you’re taking advantage of me.”

“Of course,” said Jet, her smile widening. “Isn’t it about time?”


	27. Leading Questions (Silver/Sapphire)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sapphire’s in the wrong future and Silver’s trying to guide her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 89: silver & sapphire - Confession in desperate situation & Parallel universes
> 
> Pre-canon, 1800s.

Iron had left him with Sapphire, so Silver knelt down beside her and took her hand. She was sitting there with her eyes closed and her head at a strange angle, rather like an abandoned doll. She’d been caught at the nexus point when Elson had made his decision. Silver wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, but Iron had insisted that time had split into two possible outcomes. Sapphire’s form was here in this one, with them, but her mind had gone ahead into the other with Elson.

_Sapphire, it’s Silver. Can you hear me?_

There was a moment of silence in return, but even as he worried, she finally responded in his mind. _Silver. Yes, I can hear you. Where are you? I can’t see you. I can’t see anyone._

 _Exactly where you left me_ , he said. _I’m here with you now. However, your mind seems to have gone into the parallel reality that Elson created – he hesitated and now there seems to be one place where he died, and one where he didn’t._

_Yes. That explains it._

_We need you back, Sapphire. You can turn time back to that moment, and prevent the fracture._

_But there’s nothing here, nothing to use as a guide._ There was an edge of fear in her thoughts.

 _But you can hear me_ , said Silver, and kissed the hand that he held. _Follow my voice back. You can do that, can’t you, Sapphire?_

There was another pause, this one long enough to cause him to fear that they had lost her.

 _Yes_ , she said. _But you had better keep talking, Silver. Iron said that something like this had happened before. What did he mean?_

_Oh, that was years ago. Centuries ago._

_Tell me. It may be important._

Silver smiled to himself and settled himself more comfortably against the wall before beginning. _Iron and Bronze were sent in, but when they arrived, they found two different versions of the same room – where the problem centred, obviously. Bronze went into one and Iron into the other._

_What had caused it?_

_The house belonged to a man who had thought about murdering his wife –rather too frequently. So often that the other reality, the one where he had done the deed, had taken on an existence of its own, superimposed over the real world. Iron found him in there, but Bronze was trapped in the possible version._

_So they sent you?_

_Yes. The focus point was a dagger_ , Silver added. _I could use that, of course._

 _I’d have thought Iron could have…_ Sapphire’s thoughts trailed away, but he could feel her smile, even if he couldn’t see it. _But you had a connection to Bronze, didn’t you?_

Silver laughed under his breath. _I suppose you could say that. Anyhow, I used the weapon and reached Bronze, but she’d been trapped in the other reality with nothing but the darkness of that idea – all that hatred and guilt – and she wasn’t herself._

_What did you do?_

_Do?_ said Silver in surprise. _I went back to Iron and told him it was far too dangerous and he should try himself._

_Silver._

Silver waved his free hand vaguely, even though she couldn’t see the movement. _Bronze in a state like that – she could have – who knows what she could have done to me?_

_But Iron made you go back and try again._

_Yes._ Silver let her share his amusement. _He doesn’t change much, does he?_

_So, what did you do?_

_You sound nearer, Sapphire. How are you progressing?_

_I’m nearly there, I think, but it’s hard to tell. Keep talking, Silver. What did you do?_

_Do?_

_Back then. With Bronze._

_Oh, that. Well, nothing, of course._

_Nothing?_

Silver hid a smile. _Once I, ah, caused Bronze to realise where she was, nothing could keep her there. She put an end to that alternative version of the room and then all she and Iron had left to do was to deal with the source._

_The dagger?_

_No. That was merely the focus point. The man himself, our charming would-be murderer._

_Silver. You did something, though, didn’t you? What was it?_

Sapphire did seem to be nearer now, Silver thought. Her voice in his mind was growing far stronger. He laughed at her question. _What do you think?_

She opened her eyes – still glowing blue – startling him with the abrupt movement. _You’re being deliberately provoking, Silver._

“Yes, but it worked,” he said with complacency, and kissed her hand again before helping her to stand.

“What would you have done if Iron hadn’t made you go back?” She looked at him. Her eyes were gradually reverting to their usual hazel. “Left her there?”

Silver met her gaze, having to bite back laughter. “Of course not. Oh, _no_.”

Sapphire laughed and then kissed his head. “I could find out, Silver. If I wanted.”

“I expect you _could_ ,” he said, but he gave her a smile. “I don’t think you will, though. Sapphire?”

They moved away towards the door to find Iron and put an end to this threat to reality.

“Besides,” added Silver, as they disappeared through the doorway, “if you were to try, or I was going to explain _properly_ , we’d need a little more time – alone.”

Sapphire took his hand. _Yes. Somehow I thought you were going to say that._


	28. Vengeful Spirits (Silver, Copper)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Copper and Silver are trapped in a crypt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt 51: copper & silver - Stranded/survival scenario & Hurt/Comfort
> 
> Warning for non-graphic bleeding/stabbing.

“Copper,” says Silver. _Copper?_

His voice sounds small somehow, as if stifled by his surroundings – the solid stone walls and floor, the musty air and the absence of light. There’s no other sound. He can’t hear anything from outside – he doesn’t expect to after what he and Copper have done, but there’s nothing in here, either. He can’t hear Copper. 

Silver pulls a face and feels around the floor for a buckle that fell in the fight, moments earlier. He picks it up and turns it over in his hands, finding the familiar process of transformation comforting. It glows as he works on it and though it’s not a lamp, it’s enough to see by.

He stands, holding it up. The crypt is small, but the tombs create shadows and black spaces. However, he can see Copper now, slumped against the side of one of those tombs.

“Copper,” he says, and darts forward. “Copper, what did you _do_?”

Silver kneels down beside the other technician, placing the glowing object on the ground next to him. He manages to refrain from touching Copper, catching himself in time and examines him visually first.

The dagger, the one that had been at the centre of the irregularity – the object that is probably the trigger itself – is now protruding from Copper’s chest. And Silver realises, his eyes widening in horror, he’s bleeding. 

“But that’s not – that shouldn’t happen,” Silver says and hastily removes his cloak, winding the edge of it around his hands and then using it to pull out the blade without touching it. Even through the cloth he can feel the power of the object – it is the trigger. Copper should have _said_ , Silver thinks. That’s why they were here – if they had only reached it before the human had found it, it would have been a purely technical matter of disposing of it safely. However, the man had taken it and whatever was inside it – Silver isn’t sure yet – had escaped into him. Now, with the human gone, it has Copper.

Copper must have known, Silver thinks with a frown. He tilts his head slightly and eyes the other warily. “Copper. Can you hear me now?”

Copper turns his head weakly. _Silver. Don’t touch that._

“It needs to be destroyed,” Silver says. “If not, then we’re trapped here. It has you – and I can’t get out without you.”

_It’s sealed in here now. That’s what matters._

Silver raises an eyebrow. “Really, Copper. There are limits to pragmatism. Anyhow, I’m sure _I_ won’t have any difficulty with it. I’m not the one who thought using himself as some sort of – of sheath was a good idea!”

_Silver –_

“Come on,” says Silver under his breath as he disentangles the weapon from his cloak and takes hold of it. “Copper’s no good to you, not like that. You want someone you can use, don’t you? You want _me_.”

It’s not that Silver can’t see Copper’s plan, but he doesn’t like it. Even if Copper wants to sacrifice himself – and Silver objects to that anyway – it leaves Silver trapped in here for as long as it takes for someone else to work out where they are, if they can, if they will – and if they can find a way through the seals Copper and Silver put on the door. So, if he doesn’t want Copper dead and himself alone here for years on end, he needs to find a way to finish this now, restore Copper and then get out of here.

It should be simple enough, he thinks happily and tightens his hold around the dagger. He recognises as he does the craftsmanship that went into it. How strange they are, he thinks, that they make such beautiful things only to hurt each other. He takes in other information: it hasn’t been used for nearly two hundred years. Its last user died with a desperate need for revenge unfulfilled, his final breath a curse and a promise. Something seems to have used that: the emotion, the moment of death, the blood and the weapon. Whoever holds this becomes that hate in human form, someone to carry out his revenge.

Silver can sense it now, that darkness; it’s leaving Copper and entering him. He feels it, an overwhelming desire to take the dagger and to kill his enemy. It’s stronger than he expected; it’s a black and red flood in his mind, sweeping away his own thoughts.

 _Oh, dear…_ is his last coherent thought before he’s lost in it.

*

Silver’s in the dark again, but this time it isn’t the crypt he’s inside. It’s his own mind and he’s not alone in here.

Well, he thinks, if this is his mind, he’ll have some light, thank you. But before he can try, there’s a roar from somewhere and he decides that it might be better in blackness after all.

“This won’t do you any good, you know,” he says to it. “There’s no one here to hurt and no way out – and, anyway, you’re much too late. Nobody found the weapon, not until over a century after you died. There’s nothing left for you.”

Nothing but the desire to make someone, anyone, pay, that is. Silver frowns. Reasoning with it does not seem to be an option.

_Silver._

_Copper!_ His mood lightens instantly. _Copper, I can hear you. I’m still in here._

_I told you not to touch it._

_And where would you be if I hadn’t?_

_I’d have destroyed it by now. Why do you have to interfere?_

Silver isn’t sure if he’s been affected by its anger, or if it’s only his usual frustration with Copper. _Only if it hadn’t destroyed you first! And I’m not interfering, I’m saving your life – both our lives._

 _It was a close thing_ , Copper agrees. _But it would have come to the same end. It would have worked._

_I disagree._

_And now_ , Copper says with annoyance, _I’m going to have to rescue you. Let it do what it wants to do, Silver._

_Hurt you again? Copper, no –_

_Silver. It’s got you. You’re not thinking clearly._

Of course. Silver understands. This way, it will be both of them against it. He abandons his fight and lets it move him as it wants – lets himself strike at Copper.

*

They’re standing together in the dim light of that buckle of his, Silver with his hand on the hilt of the dagger he’s stabbed into Copper. And now, between them, there’s a grey shape emerging from the knife.

“It’s over,” Copper tells it. “It was over a long time ago. Do you want this weapon to carry on – to be used on those who have no connection to your enemy? The victims could as easily be your own descendents. Do you understand?”

Silver knows that’s no use already, but there’s no need to say it – they both hear in their minds its incoherent scream of rage. Whatever it once was, all it is now is anger and hate.

Copper and Silver exchange a glance and Silver maintains his grip on the hilt while Copper touches the blade itself and it slowly rusts away, as it should have done, left uncovered in the forest for so many years.

Silver’s free again now and he smiles and holds out his hands. “There, see. My way is always best.”

Copper ignores him and looks down, almost curiously, at the wound in his chest and the patch of blood left from the first one. Slowly, one heals and the bloodstain from the other vanishes. “Ah,” he says. “Yes, there’s nothing left of it.”

“Good,” says Silver and moves lightly over to the door. “Copper, help me with this – we don’t want to stay here, do we?”

Copper shakes his head and sinks back down against the tomb. _Wait a moment longer, Silver._

Silver’s at his side again even before he answers, putting a hand to his arm. “I’m not surprised. You shouldn’t have let him do that. We could have got hold of the weapon some other way.”

_Silver. It was the simplest way. Its destruction was the point._

“Don’t be ridiculous, Copper,” says Silver putting a hand to his shoulder. He leans in nearer to the other. “You of all people should know not to be careless. They can’t replace you, you know.”

_They can. They would, if they needed to._

_No_ , says Silver, and he takes Copper’s hand, doing his best to help him. Even Copper knows it’s the sensible course of action and doesn’t object – and for the moment Silver avoids the temptation to tease him. “No, Copper. They can’t.”


	29. Missing Pieces (Silver, Jet)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jet’s behaving strangely, and Silver’s worried…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 50: silver & jet - Wish-fulfillment & Confession of love. (1920s, immediately after Interrupted, although that isn’t important.)

_They’re staring at me again._

Silver looks at Jet and then neatly draws her aside from the dancing, somehow manoeuvring past the humans without any awkward collisions. “Yes. But that doesn’t usually trouble you. Quite the opposite, as I recall.”

“Don’t you ever hope they’re going to improve?” she says, keeping hold of his arm and leading him further away from them, out through the open French windows and into the narrow garden, into the darkness.

“Oh, they’re not all that bad, are they?” Silver leans towards her, amused again. “And did you see the couple by the door -?”

Jet turns her head away. “No, I –” She frowns and moves away from him.

“I didn’t think you did,” Silver says. It’s not like Jet not to take note of her surroundings. “Jet? It was your idea to stay.”

She shrugs. “That statue. It – the images in my mind. I can still see them.”

Jet is more organic than most of them, he remembers, more attuned to human emotions. It can be a powerful asset, but he supposes it might have its downside. Silver can’t do anything about that, so he pulls out a brooch he’s picked up from one of the guests and fiddles with it, causing it to glow.

“Oh, not _now_ , Silver,” Jet says, catching the light out of the corner of her eye and swinging round to knock it out of his hands. They both stop at the uncharacteristic action.

“Jet?”

She forces a smile. “Let’s go back inside.”

“No,” says Silver, kneeling down and feeling around in the grass for the brooch. “I don’t want to.”

“Oh, come on, Silver. It’ll be fun.”

He looks up at her. “Is it Steel?”

“No,” says Jet, and grins. “Of course not. Although I wish he was here right now, not you!”

“Well, I don’t think _he’d_ enjoy the party,” Silver returns as he recovers the fallen object and vanishes it again between his fingers. Sapphire, though, he thinks wistfully, Sapphire would, and he misses her. It’s been rather a while since that unfortunate incident (which _wasn’t_ his fault) and he’s hardly seen her since, other than in passing.

_Silver._

At her use of his name, he sits on the grass and gives Jet a smile, waiting for more.

“Earlier,” she says, sitting beside him, “in the cupboard. What if I were serious?”

“About the statue? I don’t think I understand.”

Jet shifts a little nearer. “No, silly. Not the statue – us. You and me, Silver.”

“Oh, I see,” says Silver, suddenly with an edge to his tone that counters his apparent enthusiasm. “Yes, of course. Why not? Perfectly logical when you think about it, is that what you mean?”

She moves back. 

“What is it you want?” he asks. “All evening – and now this. Jet?” He thinks worriedly of other colleagues who have gone to the other side and can’t entirely hide his alarm at the idea.

Jet gives a laugh suddenly, and puts a hand to his jacket, straightening it – crawling about on the lawn hasn’t done his outfit any favours. “Oh, Silver. I didn’t think you’d panic at the idea.” She keeps her hands on his shoulders once she’s finished and he realises that she’s reading him. 

Silver hesitates to move away, though that’s not entirely reassuring, until he understands it’s a questioning, not an attack. She’s not sure of _him_. Then he relaxes and allows her to go where she wishes. He can never help enjoying the contact with his colleagues. When she’s finished and she draws back slightly, he crooks an eyebrow at her, waiting for her answer.

She laughs again and kisses him lightly before releasing him.

“Oh,” says Silver, suddenly coming to his own conclusions. “It’s Ruby, isn’t it? All evening.”

_Yes._

_But why me? Why did you think that I would know anything about it?_

_Somebody thought… thought that you might._

“Well,” says Silver, huffing at the suggestion. “I wish they wouldn’t. But – Jet, she’s gone. Hasn’t she?”

Jet trembles. “No. I know she hasn’t. I can’t find her, but I can still sense her. She’s out here somewhere.”

“Your connection remains,” he says, immediately moving onto the problem and leaving behind anything else. “And so she’s not far away, in terms of conventional location – so far as that goes?”

“Yes. I think so. As soon as we got here – well, the feeling’s been growing stronger all evening.”

Silver smiles back at her. “Then I can help you narrow it down a little more – hopefully enough to find her.”

Jet nods, then, and takes his hands as he holds them out to her.

“Good,” says Silver and his smile grows. “Now – wish, Jet – _wish_.”


	30. Purpose (Jet)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She is aware of darkness and of threads of light running through it…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 3: jet - Amnesia & Chromatic recasting.

She is aware of darkness and of threads of light running through it. They mean something – she is following them and absorbing sensations – information – along the way. She feels the space around her shifting between warmth and cold and she hears snatches of sound. It’s not quite music, but there’s a pattern in it.

Where she is, she doesn’t know; she is lost inside something, but a clear sense of purpose remains though everything else has left her. She follows the thread and pays attention to the patterns, because the other thing she knows is this: lurking within them is something malign and _other_ that she must ward away.

She reaches inside herself to draw on all she has. She has strength that surprises her: metal and wood and more besides. She hunts down that pattern, that sound – it’s an instrument, though it’s only random notes and not a tune she hears. As it goes on, it’s opening up a way in for something that screams in her mind and wants only to devour.

That’s what she’s doing here, she knows now. She’s standing between it and its path out into the world – and there’s something else, a supporting strength beyond her. She is enough (they are enough); she is sure of that. She lets herself expand out, the power of her mind, of herself silencing the notes and the screeches.

She stands against such malignant forces, she always has. She is many things: hard mineral and softer organic matter; black as night and warm as the daylight. She owns beauty, power, sorrow; she is all this by turns and more. 

“Jet,” she says, finding her full self again and she smiles. Then she blinks and reality reasserts itself around her: she is standing in an empty village hall. Empty, that is, but for Jet and the man who is holding onto her shoulders, grounding her here.

_Steel._

All he says, however, is: “It’s done?”

Jet moves away from him and looks down at the violin she’s holding. It’s empty of the disturbance she had tracked to its source. It’s now no more or less than it should be. “Yes. Of course. What did you expect?”

She puts the instrument down and runs her long fingers over it one last time. She remembers how she felt chasing down its hidden darkness and smiles again to herself. Yes, she is all those things; she is Jet.


	31. Opposition (Silver/Steel)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s an entity feeding off and amplifying negative emotion and Silver and Steel have already sent all the humans out of the way. Which means there’s only one explanation for why it’s still active…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 66: steel & silver - Bad boys & Jealousy. 
> 
> For SeriesFive.

_Steel?_

Steel lifted his head, irritated at being interrupted as he paced around the empty living room. _Silver. What is it now?_

“There seems,” said Silver, suddenly appearing at his side, “to be a flaw in your plan.”

As Steel looked at Silver, the other gave a discreet nod in the direction of the hallway. “It’s still there?”

“Yes,” said Silver. “And I’m afraid it’s not noticeably weaker than it was. But Sapphire has taken everyone else, and the house is fully sealed.”

“If it’s still feeding off negative emotions, someone must have stayed.”

“I can’t find anyone,” said Silver. “And Sapphire checked. But the creature is very much there and I can’t get anywhere near the radio until it’s gone.” He opened the door out into the hallway and gestured for Steel to listen.

Steel heard the crackle of static again cutting short the snatches of resentful words that it had been repeating over and over since they had arrived here: 

 

// I won’t tell you again – I hate you – know it was your fault – don’t touch that – that’s always your solution isn’t – I knew it was you – why did you – never were any use – go away – easy for you – //

 

Silver pulled the door to quietly, and turned to give Steel a questioning look.

“What do you think?” Steel asked.

Silver frowned, as he leant back against the door. “It’s storing the negative energy, not merely the words? There would be a lot of power left – it’s been here for a long time. That adds up to quite a bit of resentment, hate, jealousy –”

“No,” said Steel. “Earlier, you said –”

Silver nodded. “I know. It was echoing the argument it had just witnessed. But since it’s still here, then it must be – there’s no other source –”

“There was something new it said, in amongst the rest. Silver?”

“I’m sorry?”

Steel looked at him, and then marched over and gripped Silver’s arm. “Don’t touch that,” he said, into his ear.

“Oh!” said Silver. “I see. You mean – it’s _us_? We’re still here and so –”

They looked at each other.

“It doesn’t need very much to keep going now, I’d imagine,” said Steel. “If that’s all, I can try and force my way past it.”

Silver held up a hand to him and then opened the door slightly and poked his head around it, before shutting it again. “No. That really won’t do. If it’s making use of us, Steel, then to try and walk right _through_ it –”

Steel glared at him.

“You can try,” said Silver, “but I don’t think it will be helpful. And, Steel?”

“Yes?”

“Well, it’s not much less than it was, so –” Silver shifted his position and leant nearer to Steel. “I’m not – well – I don’t –”

_You don’t dislike me._

“Exactly,” Silver said, and smiled. “Quite the opposite, strange as it may seem.”

Steel didn’t move away from him; he gave him what passed for a smile in return, if a slightly grim one. “But you’re afraid I’m going to try and force my way through it anyway.”

“No,” said Silver, though he sounded less certain. “I don’t think you would – would you?”

 _But you don’t think so. You’re not sure. And I –_ Steel turned his gaze away from Silver, and stared at the opposite wall. Silver was unpredictable – too quick, too sure of himself. And there were other things – irritations – his too-easy way with technology, useful though it was – Sapphire –

 _Sapphire makes her own choices_. Silver wasn’t teasing now. _We both know that very well._

“Yes,” Steel said, and didn’t comment on the intrusion into his thoughts. “Silver –”

Silver gave a nod and became brisk again. “So we either need to deal with it, or we need to do something about us,” he summarised. “Time to get a little better acquainted, Steel?”

Silver was right. It was the simplest way. They could deprive it of its sole source of power for long enough and get through to the radio before it came back, before it was too late. Steel glanced at Silver warily only to find the technician was looking at him with a worryingly hopeful expression.

_It’s only a matter of necessity._

“Oh, quite.”

_Silver._

Silver merely looked as innocent as possible – which was to say, not at all in this case – but then as they both remained standing there, he gave a slight laugh before moving nearer to Steel again. He put a light hand to Steel’s arm and paused, as if awaiting permission.

“I suppose there’s not another way?” said Steel, but he put his hands to Silver’s head without giving any chance for the other to reply. Silver shifted his position slightly and then placed his hands over Steel’s. Having got what he wanted, he was nervous, Steel realised with grim humour. Then he closed his eyes.

It was easier than he expected, but trying to find his way through Silver’s mind was irritating. Silver’s whole essence was unlike Steel’s, at least in all the surface ways that met his initial probing: rapid thoughts, irrelevant observances, passing pleasures – the small details, rather than the bigger picture that Steel refused to lose sight of. Silver seemed to elude him at every turn. Steel frowned and tried harder.

_Steel –_

“Stay still,” he said, concentrating.

Silver pressed himself back against the wall. _Steel, stop – this isn’t supposed to be a – a –_

_What?_

_An interrogation!_ said Silver. _It’s supposed to be an exchange of information, a two-way process, not you stamping around in my mind in hob-nailed boots._

Steel looked at him. _It’s a matter of necessity, Silver. I said. Now, stand still –_

 _Oh, very well_ , said Silver. _Have it your own way, but don’t blame me when – well._ He let himself go limp against the wall, held up by Steel’s hold on him rather than anything else.

Steel tried again, closing his eyes. They needed to understand each other better; the connection needed to go deeper – beyond the light bouncing off reflective surfaces. He thought he was almost getting somewhere, when Silver’s thoughts suddenly weren’t there, as if he’d overwhelmed him. He drew back, afraid that he had – and found that Silver himself had vanished. In the circumstances, the close contact, his absence was a sudden and sharp loss.

“Silver?” he said, turning around and searching the room with his gaze. _Silver? Where are you?_

Steel stepped outside into the corridor. The creature was still there, but a grey, translucent shape now, little left of it. There was nothing else – or nothing he could see or sense. Only the faint sound of the radio that had triggered all this off, still relaying its repeated complaints:

 

// I won’t tell you again – I hate you – know it was your fault – that’s always your solution isn’t – I knew it was you – why did you – never were any use – go away – hate you – hate you – hate you – should be the last time – easy for you – //

 

Steel withdrew into the room again. Had he caused Silver’s disappearance, or had it? The other possibility, he carefully did not consider. At any rate, they had got their result, but without a technician to disable that radio, it wasn’t ideal. He could try to dismantle it himself, of course, probably destroy it if necessary, but it was what Silver was here for. Annoying he might be, but he was also useful. It would be quicker with him than without him.

Yes, Silver was useful; would be useful right now, and it was – at this particular moment – very important to remember that. Steel might have smiled briefly before he stepped back out into the hallway.

The entity was shadowy, cloud-like and dispersing in wisps as Steel watched. He moved forward cautiously, mindful of things that Sapphire had said, and Silver’s warning. 

Steel kept back against the wall and edged himself down the narrow hallway. He paused in his progress to try again. _Silver?_

There was still no reply from the technician. The place seemed very empty without him, he had to admit. 

It had almost gone entirely, Steel noted as he looked at it again. He closed his eyes and wondered again what he’d done to Silver. Sapphire would be grieved if the technician had gone.

Steel opened his eyes again to see that the creature was smaller than ever. He moved past it and opened the door into the other room. The first thing he saw was Silver, already there and sitting amongst the components and wiring of the radio he was busy taking to pieces.

“Oh, Steel,” said Silver, giving a brief glance in his direction before focusing back on his work. “There you are. This won’t take a moment now…”

Before Steel could say anything, the shadow entity reappeared, inside the room this time, drifting toward Silver, gathering the last of itself to protect the malfunctioning radio that was the source of its existence in this world.

Steel walked across the room, barring its path. Silver didn’t even look up, merely switching tools from the small collection beside him and pulling something apart in his hands. The dark shape disappeared and the atmosphere in the room immediately lightened.

“There,” said Silver and then shifting himself back around so that he could look up at Steel from his position on the floor and gave him a bright smile.

Steel looked down at him. “Silver.”

“Yes, I know,” said Silver, getting to his feet, and brushing his suit down. “It worked though, didn’t it?”

Steel walked through the space where the thing had been and back again. “Yes, it worked.”

“I’m sorry,” added Silver, giving him a more curious look. “I knew you’d understand, of course, although, really, Steel, your clumsy efforts at –”

Steel swung around and stopped abruptly in front of Silver, causing the other to jump and look suddenly nervous. _I wondered –_

“Steel?”

“It isn’t important. Where were you? You couldn’t get through before – too much interference, you said.”

Silver grinned. “Don’t you know?”

“You weren’t anywhere,” said Steel. “Not anywhere I could find you.”

 _You might say I was with you_ , said Silver, and smiled back when Steel gave him a hard stare. “And, anyway, Steel, next time –”

“Next time?”

Silver looked surprised, and then leant against Steel. “Well, yes, next time,” he said, and then, murmuring into his ear, “you could use a few pointers in more – well – more delicate matters – _not_ that your methods don’t have their own advantages, of course –”

_Silver. You were being deliberately difficult._

“May I?” said Silver, moving slightly so that he was now in front of Steel. He put his hands to Steel’s head, and Steel felt something like an echo of the question in his mind.

 _First_ , Silver said, in his thoughts, _you – well, you knock before entering, Steel. You don’t break down the door and burst in as if you’ve come to arrest someone in the middle of the night. Like so – gently –_

The mental contact was correspondingly light, like a first few flakes of snow, or feathers, falling. As sensations went, it was not unpleasant.

 _Then_ , Silver continued, giving him an arch look, _once you are inside, you pause for a moment to admire the décor and compliment your host on their new curtains –_

 _There wasn’t time for niceties._ Steel decided not to ask about the relevance or otherwise of curtains. Silver would be only too willing to explain – or confuse him further.

 _There’s always time for the niceties_ , Silver returned. _And then you accept whatever the owner is willing to offer you, but no more. And you say thank you afterwards._

Steel could see more of Silver’s thoughts this time; it was much easier than it had been before, although there were moments when it was irritatingly like trying to see through a blizzard of tinsel. And with his training, his ability to pick out the important things, there were two things he saw immediately.

 _It wasn’t only absorbing the negative emotions; it was emitting them_ , Steel said and felt the other’s instant agreement.

_That might explain why it was so difficult when we –_

_Yes. Except that you exaggerated._

Silver’s amusement became tinged with guilt. _Perhaps. But there’s no harm in trying for a little finesse, after all._ Then he carefully released Steel, lowering his hands, though he didn’t move away. “There. You see?”

 _Hob-nailed boots, you said_ , Steel reminded him, lifting an eyebrow. _That wasn’t what you were thinking._

“Hmm?” Silver was apparently not listening. Instead, he straightened Steel’s lapels, looking far too pleased with himself. Steel watched his movements and then, when Silver stopped and faced him with a smile, Steel kissed him briefly, before walking abruptly away.

“If it’s gone,” he said, as if nothing else had happened, “we should unseal the house. Presumably, they’ll want it back.”

“Well, yes, I – yes,” said Silver, sounding slightly shaken. “Steel?”

Steel hid amusement. Perhaps his action was in part the consequence of allowing Silver into his mind in the first place, but there was something deeply satisfying about a disconcerted Silver. It never lasted, but all the same… “Then get on with it. You take upstairs, I’ll finish down here.”

_… Steel?_

_Is there a problem?_ Steel headed to the door without looking back at the other.

 _No_ , returned Silver, seeming to recover himself. _No, not at all, Steel. Quite the opposite, in fact._


	32. Birthday Offer (Lead)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lead gets an unexpected birthday offer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 46: lead - Deal with the devil & Birthday

Elements didn’t mark time, or not as the humans did, but Lead liked candles and cakes and celebrations, so he sometimes joked that it was his birthday, if there was time and opportunity. And it must be sometime, mustn’t it? If he had a beginning somewhere long ago then, every once in a while, he must have an anniversary, so why not? Sapphire was always ready to humour him, even if Steel was disinclined to take any notice of such irrelevancies.

Today had started out as one of those days – it’d been years since the last – and he’d got his cake, but right then, before he could blow out the candles, time had frozen in the kitchen and everything else had turned dark. It hadn’t been Sapphire’s doing, Lead knew that, and he wasn’t even sure where Steel had got to.

It had been the cook, the one who’d helped make him his cake. She was more – or less, perhaps – than she seemed. That wasn’t unusual, of course. He watched with interest as she shifted form, waiting for her to settle into one before he made up his mind as to what kind of threat she could be. She thinned, widened, aged and de-aged again before solidifying as a grey-haired woman, be-suited and lacking any trace of humour in her face.

“You don’t scare me, you know,” he said, and gave a low rumble of a laugh. “What’s this about, then?”

“You want this house back where it belongs, don’t you?” she said, raising her head, watching him closely. Her eyes were blue-grey, he noticed, as she stared at him, her gaze hard. “You want your colleagues returned?”

“Well,” said Lead. “I might. But I don’t need you for that.”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t,” Lead said, and couldn’t keep back another chuckle. “But go on. You’ll do that – and let me go – if I do… what? You want something, I’m guessing. You wouldn’t bring me to wherever this otherwise.”

The woman folded her arms against herself and remained watching him for some time before answering. “You,” she said. “That’s what we want. This work of yours – you don’t have to do this. It never stretches you enough, does it? You could join us instead.”

“Oh?”

“And if you don’t,” she added, and gave a thin smile, “well, if you don’t, I’ll leave you here, in this place until – until it’s too late.”

Lead shook his head and grinned at her. “I don’t think so.” So, he thought, it hadn’t been time that had frozen, it had been him, taken and placed somewhere – in something. He didn’t know what and she was being careful not to tell him.

“Even if you did remain untouched,” she said, “it’s not in you to stay in one place, is it?”

Well, it wasn’t, he knew, but if it happened, he’d find a way to deal with it. What else would he do? Lead shrugged. “Better than the alternative.”

“You’re certain about that?”

Lead laughed at her again, but loudly this time; let himself go fully. When he’d finished, he advanced on her. She didn’t move or flinch, though he dwarfed her – and by rights he could break her with one hand. But, he reminded himself, she wasn’t what she seemed. “What, a deal with the devil? Oh, no; no thanks. I know how that ends, and you can count me out.” Then he gave a sudden grin. “’Sides, I like them, most of the time. The humans, you know. Cakes and candles and presents – don’t suppose you have them, do you?”

He finally moved on her, but as he’d expected, she simply wasn’t there any more. Lead nodded to himself, and stayed where he was – not that he had much choice just yet – and waited.

He hadn’t been surprised when he’d wound up here. Now he wasn’t surprised, when the darkness cracked into pieces and after a moment of blinding light, he was back in the kitchen, the candles still burning. Steel was standing in front of him.

“What took you so long?” Lead asked Steel, and turned his head to wink at Sapphire. “I’ve been waiting to blow out these candles.”

“Lead –” Sapphire moved forward.

Steel didn’t give her chance to finish, his attention on Lead. “What happened?”

Lead only grinned again, and put his hand to Steel’s shoulder, a friendly blow that would have felled anyone else. “Nothing worth talking about. Now, Steel, let me at that cake before those candles burn themselves out.”

Sapphire watched as Lead blew out the candles – sent some of them falling out of their holders and onto the table. “There was an image of you on it, you know – right in the middle of the icing.”

It had been dark, because he’d been hidden away in the cake topping? Lead laughed again. Now _that_ he wished he’d known. Maybe he could have eaten his way out. “Funny,” he agreed. “But nothing that should get in the way of celebrating my birthday.”

“You can’t have an anniversary,” said Steel. His face formed itself into an expression of distaste around his next words: “Certainly not a birthday. And, Lead, something happened. I want to know what it was.”

“I can’t?” said Lead. “You sure about that? It’s my birthday, I should know.”

_Lead._

Lead shook his head at him. “Steel, didn’t I say? Nothing worth talking about. Now, how about we have some of that cake, before we’ve got to hurry off somewhere else?”


	33. Genius Loci (Sapphire, Silver, Copper)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s an ornamental fountain that’s slowing time down – and that’s not the only surprise hiding within it…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-series, 1750s.
> 
> Prompt 70: silver & sapphire & copper - Supernatural AU & Fountain of youth.

“It’s certainly unusual,” said Silver, following Sapphire across the carefully laid out grounds, towards the gravel paths and the rose bushes – and the ornamental fountain in the centre. She matched her surroundings quite perfectly, he thought, observing her with private amusement: her light blue gown with its ridiculous hoops under the skirt that didn’t inconvenience her, though they surely should have done. There were embroidered sprays of flowers on the skirt, sleeves and stomacher, and he could swear they were the same as some of the flowers growing in the neat borders around them. Knowing Sapphire, it was not impossible. “Are you sure?”

Sapphire waved a hand towards the over-elaborate stone structure. It had miniature classical-style bronze statuettes in small alcoves on each side of the central piece. “There’s too much time collecting here. It’s been passing more slowly as a result. The occupants seem to becoming drawn to this place without knowing why – and to the water.”

“And then their time is also slowed down,” said Copper, following Sapphire’s explanation closely. “Which means, therefore, an apparent lack of aging – presumably fractional at this point, possibly not even noticeable to them?”

“Let’s hope so,” Silver put in. “Humans have been looking for a mythical fountain of youth for rather a long time. If they thought they’d discovered one in their back garden – well! I should imagine the trouble here would rapidly worsen.”

Sapphire nodded. “It’s not clear what the source of the problem is. There’s certainly something about the fountain itself, but it’s more than that. I think – one of the statues is far older than the others. I can feel something – something else, though. I don’t know why it’s so tangled and vague.”

Copper stepped into the fountain and waded across to examine the shallow water to the centrepiece, heedless of stockings and shoes, and then, stopped to touch each of the statues in turn. As he got to the last, Silver arrived beside him and plucked it out of its alcove before Copper could reach for it, giving him an irritating smile.

“Older than the rest?” said Silver, weighing it in his hand and raising his eyebrows at what he sensed. “I should say it is. Copper, see.”

Copper gave him a look and then took the object from him, as Silver poked around the structure, looking at the others. Silver, unlike Sapphire, was not dressed in any such finery. Copper preferred plain, practical clothes and he was the one in charge. It did at least mean less in the way of oversized cuffs either on his coat, or the frilled ruffs that might had finished his shirt, so he could continue his examination unimpeded by ridiculous human fashion. But, still, Silver thought idly while doing so, it was very dull, especially when Sapphire was here. So _very_ typical of Copper, and Silver wished as he frequently did these days that they might be allowed separate assignments again soon.

“These,” said Silver, his voice muffled by the odd angle at which he was bending down, his face nearly up against one of the other statues, “are presumably copies of older works, very new. That one –”

“Is Bronze,” said Copper, stepping back out of the fountain, still staring down at the statue he was holding carefully in both hands.

Sapphire looked at Copper in puzzlement. “Well, we knew that. They all are.”

“- is two _thousand_ years older than the –” Silver stopped mid-sentence and hopped out of the water to rejoin Copper. “Bronze? But it can’t be!”

Copper ran his hand gently down the front of the statue. “A likeness of her – an image of Bronze.” A faint edge of humour crept into his tone at that.

Silver took it from Copper again, turning it over, and then passing it to Sapphire. “You’re right. It is. Quite unmistakably.”

Sapphire held it now and touched its metallic hair and face with her fingers. “I don’t understand. This is very old. As Silver says –”

“Two thousand years – or more,” said Silver. “I’d need to examine it more carefully.”

“Is it something she did, or something that was done to her?”

Silver looked at Copper. “Neither, I think. In a way, only a coincidence – mostly. Sapphire, now that you have it, tell me where it came from. I think I can guess, but –”

“It’s been around for a very long time,” she said, her eyes glowing blue now as she spoke, focusing intently on the artefact. “Here, and in another great house, in a collection – in a church before that, buried for a long while –”

Silver leant towards Sapphire, though he also glanced back at Copper. “She did say she’d been a goddess once.”

“Yes,” said Copper, his disapproval evident in his tone. “I remember.”

Silver turned his head. “Hardly her fault. She was with Iron and you don’t think _he’d_ have indulged in such a masquerade on a whim, do you?”

“Somehow,” said Copper, “I expect the rest of us would have found some way to avoid it.”

Silver gave his attention back to Sapphire, curious about her results. “Yes, but she did say, once, that they’d wanted to make images – and that there had been one man who –”

“Yes,” said Sapphire, the unnatural glow fading from her eyes. “You’re right, Silver.”

“I usually am.” But Silver was still waiting for more from Sapphire, his gaze shifting between her and the statuette she was holding.

“He saw something of her true nature and shaped this in memory,” Sapphire said, dreamily, still distant. Then abruptly, she returned to them. “It isn’t enough, though. It’s part of it, but it still isn’t the whole cause.”

“And this is merely another instance of the sheer irresponsibility of –”

“Oh, Copper, it’s _much_ too late for a lecture,” said Silver, in irritation. He moved a step across, to Sapphire, and put his hand to her arm. “Well, what else have you and Chromium found so far?”

Sapphire passed the metal figure to him and walked away without answering, taking a turn around the fountain again.

“Yes,” said Silver, sitting on the stone edge of the fountain and examining the object more carefully. He ran his fingers over it and turned it over again. Yes, he could feel it now, the way it had been made. It was a very, very long time ago, but the artist had captured something of Bronze’s essence in it. Something in the pose, he thought, and smiled sadly to himself. It had been made with a great deal of care and then, as Sapphire had said, it had been worshipped in various ways, before it had been lost and then found again – and judging by its unexpected appearance here, mislaid again. 

Copper was studying the water, dipping his hand in and out. “Hmm,” he said. “Yes, there are two sources, but the other is very unclear.”

What the other technician had said gradually filtered through to Silver’s awareness and he looked up. “Hmm. Something all around us, perhaps?”

“The location,” said Sapphire, who had come full circle back towards them. “It’s the location itself. I can’t specify the other source of the anomaly, because it’s in everything.”

Copper looked around him. “I don’t see –”

Sapphire knelt down on the ground. “It was once a sacred place, the focus of worship. Two such things, brought together – that’s what’s caused it.”

“There’s also the design,” said Copper. “The way the landscape has been manipulated into a certain shape here may have contributed.”

Sapphire looked up. “Yes. There is a decorative folly over in that direction – in the shape of a temple.”

“It’s a general principle,” said Copper, “that the design of such a place as this should reflect its context. Perhaps the person who was responsible was influenced by that same something and was a little too successful in that respect.”

“Something that was once worshipped,” Sapphire said. “Or, no, something that grew out of the worship that was given to the place.”

Silver raised an eyebrow. “Garden design, Copper? You?”

“I have always,” said Copper as repressively as he could, “had an enquiring mind when it comes to matters that might be relevant.”

“And things that impose a pleasing order on chaos,” added Silver pointedly. “How very dull you would make the world, Copper.” To Sapphire, he said: “ _Genius loci._ ”

“Yes,” said Sapphire. “The spirit of the place. It’s slept here for a very long time, but now it’s awake, gathering its strength, collecting time here, around this other source of power.”

“So,” said Copper, “we must destroy one and in doing so that will also lessen the other’s power.”

Silver looked down at the image of Bronze in his hands. “Destroy it?” he said. “Oh, yes, I suppose we must.”

“We can’t keep it, can we?” Sapphire gave a smile.

Silver fished around inside his jacket for a moment, switching the statuette from one hand to the other in the process, and then glanced down at it, as if in surprise that he still had it.

 _Silver._ Copper gave him an unimpressed stare and held out his hand.

Silver passed the item over. “You think you can do it?”

“If Sapphire provides a distraction, then easily,” said Copper. “Sapphire?”

Sapphire gave no answer, but she moved forward, and away from them, ready to face down the other aspect of this irregularity. Her eyes changed colour again, this time to a bright azure as she made her presence a challenge to the unseen enemy.

 _Sapphire._ Silver was instantly at her side, though he merely hovered there nervously. _Is that safe?_

She didn’t turn aside from her task, and Silver stepped back, giving an amused smile at the foolishness of his question. It was _never_ safe. Then, before he walked back to Copper, he paused to watch her: meeting the nature of Time’s work here, the power that they, the humans, had inadvertently given it by ascribing such importance and value to one place, to one object – and the the two coming together here. 

Silver moved across to rejoin Copper, who was now standing over a small molten pool of bronze. “Oh, well done, Copper.”

“ _You think that will end this?_ ”

It was Sapphire who mouthed the words, but not Sapphire who spoke. Silver and Copper turned back towards her. She was still fighting it in her own way, and Silver noted a certain curve to the set of her mouth that suggested the spirit of the place was not, despite its use of her, having things all its own way. Even so, he thought, worriedly, and looked to Copper.

They shared the same thought in response, but Silver got there first, moving swiftly and lightly back to the fountain and, with a brief grin, creating a hole in the side of it. Then he sat on the stone rim of it and watched the water flow out onto the gravel path and seep away slowly.

Sapphire smiled, and raised her head before the ground shook, and then there was an odd, in-between moment, as if the place and they had been struck by lightning, and then it was clear day again, Sapphire standing in the centre of the path, triumphant, Copper blinking at the sudden change, and Silver sitting in the now-empty fountain basin.

“Sapphire?” said Copper. There was no need to ask anything more, hardly even to say that much, but he liked to be sure.

She smiled and nodded, and the turned to give a laugh at Silver’s undignified position. She held out a hand to him, which he took.

“Then you had better find Chromium, hadn’t you?” said Copper. “We should have done that before –”

“There wasn’t time,” said Silver.

Sapphire nodded. “Yes, of course.”

As soon as she was out of sight, Copper caught hold of Silver’s shoulder. “Silver. The copy may not be entirely safe, either.”

“I didn’t make one,” Silver said, his mouth twitching slightly as he tried not to laugh. “Really, Copper. Whatever made you think that I would?”

“I saw you, Silver. You were trying to hide it.”

Silver perched on the edge of the fountain again and directed an amused look up at Copper. “But I didn’t. I wasn’t.”

“Silver, I am not about to be fooled by this –”

“I thought,” said Silver, lightly, “that it might make your task a little easier if you believed that I had. You’re too suspicious for your own good.”

Copper stared down at him. He was a long time in replying and Silver wondered what, exactly, he was thinking. _I don’t indulge in emotional attachments, Silver._

“No,” said Silver, still amused. “Of course you don’t, Copper. No one would think it of you. Certainly not I.”

“Silver.”

“Well, there are other factors involved,” said Silver. “You must admit that, and I wasn’t doing any harm in _pretending_ to reduplicate an artefact.” And, he thought, he was the one who’d held it and Copper could have asked _him_ to destroy it. Whether the fact that he hadn’t came down to a belief that Silver might make an error, or try something over-complicated, or whether it had been consideration of Silver’s history, or his dislike of destroying such things, he didn’t know. It all amounted to the same thing and so he returned the favour in a small way. A small way, of course, that would incidentally also annoy Copper, but that was so terribly easy to do, after all.

Copper glanced down at the melted bronze. “Yes, true,” he said. Then he raised an eyebrow at Silver. “It’s probably about time you stopped shadowing me again. I’ll see what can be done.”

They’d both be glad of that, thought Silver, though he decided not to comment in case anything he said made Copper change his mind. And then again, he thought, with a sudden pang, what if it wasn’t safe yet? Trailing around after Copper was intensely frustrating, but – 

He looked up again but he found that Copper had already gone, so he shrugged and then got down on his knees and peeled the soft metal off the gravel, rolling it into a ball in his hand.

_Silver._

Silver turned his head and smiled widely upwards. “Sapphire. I don’t believe I said how good it is to see you again.”

“You didn’t have to,” she said, though she smiled back at him and waited for him to stand. Once he had, she put her hand on his arm and slid it downwards, taking his hand in hers, both of them holding the lump of metal. Sapphire didn’t need to even ask the question in her mind for him to answer it.

“Oh, there’s nothing out of the ordinary left at all,” said Silver and let go of it, let her hold it and move away from him as she turned it over in her fingers. “You see?”

“Yes. Only an alloy of copper and tin. Bronze.” Then Sapphire added, with the faintest note of curiosity in her voice, “I can’t say that I knew her. I never worked with her.”

Silver laughed softly, and let Sapphire keep the small globe. “No,” he agreed. “A shame. I think she would have found you every bit as fascinating as I do.”


	34. The Ghost in the Garden (Sapphire/Steel)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s something at the bottom of the garden…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 94: sapphire & steel - Ghosts & Courtship ritual
> 
> Mild references to murder, death.

Steel exits the apparently deserted house, nearly causing the unsteady door to break off its rusted hinges. He strides out into the large, long and overgrown back garden with a frown on his face.

_Sapphire. There’s no one here._

She walks into the path beside him. “There is. Somewhere. They’re hiding. They’re so afraid, Steel.” She shivers, seeing things that he can’t again. “So afraid… so guilty.”

“And whoever it is – they’re the trigger? You’re sure about that, Sapphire?”

She nods, and then touches his shoulder, causing him to turn as the two ghostly figures walk out of the door behind them, much as he did moments ago. Even Steel can feel the pull they exert. They want to use Sapphire and Steel, drag them into their time, their existence, the moment they’ve been playing over and over.

Sapphire straightens herself, preparing to fight them, but Steel grips her arm. 

“Don’t,” he says. “Let them. Let it play out. Let’s find out exactly what this was about.”

“Steel –” 

“Can you do that, Sapphire?”

She nods, and her protests die away. She focuses on the apparitions, her eyes glowing blue. She invites the echoes in, lets them show what it is they want the two of them to see.

 

They take each other’s hands as they leave the house, and then she pulls free. He moves after, catches hold of her again and they walk along the path that was once there, but is now all but grown over. This is something they’ve done many times, but today something is different.

He doesn’t see that, not yet. He has no doubt of her. He talks about the garden, about his business, a dance they went to the other night. They left early. She was unhappy then, as she’s unhappy now, but he still hasn’t noticed.

When they reach the well, he sits on its edge and then reaches for her again, and takes her hand. She pulls free, though she tries to pretend it’s casual – as if she wants to push her hair back out of her face.

“What is it?” he asks, finally seeing she’s not herself – that’s how he puts it. “If something’s wrong, tell me.”

She shakes her head, and then sits beside him. She puts her hand up to his face and looks up –

 

The illusion fades, leaving Sapphire and Steel at the well.

“Sapphire,” he growls in frustration. “We were just getting to the point. Try it again.”

She’s very close to him still: they’re side by side, perching on the edge of the well. “We don’t need to. I know what happened.”

“It would help to see,” he says. Again, she can see it, and he can’t.

Sapphire gets to her feet and looks back at him, her mouth quirking at the corners. “Steel. I said. I know what happened. I understand. I know what the source of the trouble is. I said there was someone here. There is. But they are _both_ still here.”

“Sapphire!” He doesn’t want to play games. Something about this place – the deserted, broken-down house, and the neglected garden – is irritating him. He stands to face her. “Explain.”

“She pushed him, Steel. She tried to answer his question, but he didn’t listen. She pulled away and he tried to stop her. And then she pushed him, and he fell – stunned himself, I think and went straight down into the well. He’s still down there.”

“And the woman?”

“She’s here. She’s almost faded away. Those ghosts are stronger than she is now.” Then Sapphire pauses and looks at Steel, the glint of humour back in her eyes. “Of course, we can continue if you want, Steel. If you want to see it through to the end.”

He counters her look repressively, but without any other acknowledgement of the teasing. “No. There’s no need, is there?”

“No,” she says, and, irrelevantly, straightens his shirt collar, her fingers brushing down the cotton. “I don’t think it would help.”

Steel turns back to face the house. “If she’s still here, we need to find her.”

“Yes,” says Sapphire. “So much emotion. Guilt. Anger. Fear. She wanted to be free, but not like that. She never meant to kill him.”

Steel looks at her. “Free?”

“Yes. And now she’s imprisoned herself, unable to move past that moment. Steel – it’s been so long – impossibly long –” Whatever Sapphire can sense is distressing her.

“Then we’d better find her, hadn’t we?”

They hunt her out, hiding behind the curtain in the bedroom, beside the window that looks out onto the garden. She’s so slight, almost transparent, it’s no surprise they couldn’t find her before. There’s almost nothing left of her but the memory.

Sapphire takes over here: she walks forward and faces the woman, and with a terrible pity, tells her what her crime was, relates what it is she and Steel have uncovered. “That was what happened?” she says, after she finishes, though she keeps a hand on the woman’s arm, not allowing her to move away, or to hide from the truth again. “Wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” the woman says in a whisper. The act of speaking it aloud releases something in the house. She’s never spoken of it before; she let the knowledge consume her in silence.

Sapphire nods, still holding onto her and leads her out, back to the well, to face the source of her terror. Steel watches for the apparitions. Time won’t like the interference.

By the time they reach the well, she’s faded away in the sunlight: the emotions were all that was sustaining her, and now those have been driven away too. In the human sense, she had already been a ghost.

Steel glances over at the well. “What about him?”

“He doesn’t matter,” says Sapphire, unconcerned. The woman was the real trigger. “Not any more.”

They exchange a glance.

“Probably,” says Steel. Then he looks about him again. He still doesn’t like this garden. “You understood her, her need to be… free?”

She smiles and reaches out her hand to take his. “I understood it, yes. There have been times when I’ve shared it.”

“But not now?” he asks, and watches her carefully. 

Sapphire laughs. “I _am_ free,” she says, and lets her thoughts wind their way into his. _You know that._

He does.


	35. Eye of the Beholder (Lead/Ruby)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beauty is where you find it…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 17: ruby & lead - Telepathy & Beauty in the eye of the beholder

_Keep going. It’s giving in; it’s retreating. I can feel it._ Ruby stays behind Lead, not touching him, but keeping close. She remains in connection with him, aware of him as he forces the chest of drawers across the wall against unseen resistance. _There. You’ve cornered it._

The images on the wall fade further. They’re too indistinct to make out now, but in her mind’s eye, Ruby can still see the dancing, softly-coloured fairies they were until she and Lead arrived to put a stop to their perilous game.

“Pretty,” says Lead, watching them go.

Ruby smiles. “Dangerous. And now – that’s it. You have it. Force it back now.”

“My pleasure,” Lead says, and gives an extra push, shoving the large item of furniture back against the wall. It had been forced away from that spot deliberately and now it’s back in place, finishing off the last manifestation of the creature they’ve been fighting – something that was using the pictures from the nursery wallpaper. “Still,” he adds, “they looked nice enough, that’s what I meant.”

“Did they?” Ruby moves over to him, and then she perches herself on the chest of drawers. “On the surface, I suppose. That’s not where I saw beauty here.” She leans over to touch his arm, and gives a sudden grin.

Lead laughs at her. “Beauty?”

“Oh, yes,” says Ruby, giving a quick nod. “Don’t you think there is a beauty in being what you are – in fulfilling your function and purpose? There’s a pattern to it I see – as if some part of the universe is falling into place.”

“If you say so.” Lead shakes his head at her, and laughs again, a laugh that echoes round the room.

She only smiles the wider. “It may be. It’s still true.”

“I like seeing the pictures you see,” he offers. “Pretty, like I said.”

Ruby lets him lift her down, and they exchange an amused look.

“It’s the same thing,” she says with authority, and then she takes his arm as they walk away, side by side.


	36. Time Turns, Leaves Fall (Ruby, Jet)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time must go on, the leaves must fall. That’s why she’s here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for hc_bingo square "trapped between realities", Element_flash's September challenge "Falling Leaves" and Prompt 18: Jet & Ruby – restrained & age regression.

Time must go on; the leaves must fall; youth must give way to age and age again to youth. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. That’s why she’s here.

*

Ruby stands half in front of the mirror and catches its reflection out of the corner of her eye; an image the house has been trying to hide from her. She can see the garden momentarily, but not as it is, or seems: the leaves have changed colour and they’re falling from the trees. If she turns around again, here and now, and looks into the garden herself, it’s spring and there’s still blossom on the trees.

“It’s nearly October,” says Jet. “This isn’t real – or it shouldn’t be.”

It isn’t real, thinks Ruby. She’s known that since they arrived, even if she’s only now found the key, the one object in the house that seems to recognise the true month and year.

“Ruby?”

Ruby smiles and then swings around to face Jet, tilting her head to one side. Brown hair falls over her shoulder in perfectly positioned waves. “Oh, no. It shouldn’t be, you’re right. And it’s more than the month, the season. Jet. When was this house built?”

“1935, I think. Yes.”

“And yet almost every item in it is over thirty years old.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Yes.” Ruby perches on the nearest chair, and taps its cushioned seat with her fingers. “This, you know. It’s forty years old. When was it made, Jet?”

Jet leans over and touches the back of the chair, running her hand along the dark, polished wood. “1951. I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?” says Ruby. She’s had the oddest feeling, ever since they got here. She’s been here before, or she will be again. And aside from that, it’s only the same problem again. Funny how they all hate time moving onwards – they hate to grow old, to see other things or people around them fade and break. Someone wants to return to a better time, or a time they think was better. She’s lost count of how often that desire has been used to cause a break in the corridor. They don’t want the clock’s hands to count on, the seasons to pass. They want to find a time that suits them and stay there. Wanting spring and summer but never autumn and winter. And yet that’s not how it is, how it ever can be: autumn must come, the leaves must fall. 

“Where is he?” she asks Jet. “The man?”

Jet nods her head towards the kitchen. “In there. Making us coffee, he says.”

“Is he?” Ruby doesn’t go to look. He’s wrong as well: at least twenty years younger than he should be.

“What do we do?” Jet looks at her. “If we can’t leave –”

Ruby smiles again: her brightest smile. “Oh, but we can. I’ve found the key to the door, Jet. Go in there and talk to him again. And when I tell you, both of you must go. Exactly when and how I say.”

“But if he’s the cause –”

She shakes her head. He is, and he isn’t. “He’s using the house. He’s lived here for fifty years. He shares its memories. And something hiding in its walls decided to make use of that, to whisper in his head, to take time back inside the house – twenty-three years, I think. That’s far enough for him – but it – it wants to go back further. We have to stop it.”

“Ruby,” says Jet, putting a hand on her arm. Ruby’s cold; Jet’s fingers are warm. “There’s something else, though, isn’t there?” 

Ruby looks at her then, and nods. “It does feel… almost rehearsed. As if I had been here before.”

“But you haven’t, have you? It’s the distortions in time that are confusing you, surely?”

“No,” she says. “I haven’t been here before, but I think perhaps I will be.”

“Ruby, what is this? Stop it.”

She laughs, and kisses Jet’s cheek. “It doesn’t matter. When I give you the word, take him away from here. It’s important.”

“You’ve got something in mind, haven’t you?” Jet’s evidently puzzled by Ruby’s behaviour. “You know, if this is going to be –”

“One of my unnecessary dramatic gestures?” Ruby interrupts her with a mocking query. “Been talking to Steel again, have we, Jet?”

“That isn’t the point.”

Ruby fixes her with a look. “You know how bad this is. Now go.” If it’s a dramatic gesture, why shouldn’t it be? Why shouldn’t she leave with a flourish? But she doesn’t say that, not aloud or into the other’s thoughts.

Jet pulls a face at her and then walks away, into the kitchen.

Ruby stares around the living room and then heads out into the hallway. She’s certain of what she’s seen and sensed here and sure of what she must do, but she needs to check. There are traps of more kinds than one and she mustn’t make a mistake. She goes over the entire house again, picking up small items and touching furniture, until she returns to the mirror. She puts her hand on its frame and her eyes glow red.

She knows this mirror, she thinks. Or no, maybe it’s more that there’s a pattern to this that she recognises. Maybe it is merely that she’s seen this kind of thing once too often.

And then her examinations pull an image out of the mirror: she’s seen this looking glass before. She’s seen herself inside it. There is a pattern, and she is part of it.

She concentrates, trying to ignore that. Even if it is true, if this is a path set for her to walk along, she has no choice left but to do so. She moves her hand to the mirror itself and forces it to show her more until the glass cracks. Behind her, so does a window pane. She merely continues to intensify her work on the mirror. The crack spreads – and the back door opens.

_Now, Jet, now!_

Jet knows when not to argue, and she leaves. Ruby can’t see her from here, but she feels it: the sudden removal of her fellow element’s presence is a physical pain that she must ignore. If she stops, it won’t be the mirror that cracks, it will be the corridor itself and perhaps Ruby, too. If she continues, she’ll be cut off from all of them, all her colleagues, but no – she won’t think about that.

She sets her mouth and raises her other hand to press that against the glass, too and it shatters, only a few pieces remaining in place, incomplete reflections of Ruby. It’s working, though. She doesn’t need to turn around to feel time shifting back into place, or to know that the garden beyond her is moving onto autumn. The leaves will fall.

She can’t let go now, though, and she’s swallowed inside the last pieces even as she pulls them in after her.

*

She’s sitting in the garden, under a tree in blossom. It’s spring, 1946.

It isn’t, of course. It’s only one reflection this mirror has seen; one of many. One place to hide a creature that would pull time out of shape and destroy reality, and one place to trap an Element.

Ruby closes her eyes and leans back against the tree. There’s no more to be done, so she shuts her mind to the reality and only thinks that an unreal half of a garden is better than nothing. It could so easily have been nothing, she knows.

But it does mean that there’s something in here with her: her garden has a serpent hiding inside it. She wonders uneasily what it will do.

_They promised me you_ , it says, from everywhere and nowhere, _and here you are._

Ruby only opens her eyes, and gives a smile. “Lucky you, then,” she says, still unbreakable and brilliant.

*

Time must go on; the leaves must fall; youth must give way to age and age again to youth. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. That’s why she’s here.


	37. Clockwork Days (Steel, Sapphire)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She winds back the days, tries to change the past. She has to be stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 56: steel - Tragic flaw & Fix-it fic

She saw a ghost once, she tells them. Right in front of her, all white and shimmering, like a haze, and she dropped the tray she was carrying in fright. She can still remember the tea things falling to the floor; crockery breaking, as if in slow motion. She knows now what it was: an apparition of the future. It was her. She’s wound back her days, changed one small detail, but she’ll do more.

“I never lived,” she tells him, as she holds tightly to the ornamental clock, hugging it in against her. “I only existed. Each day the same, like clockwork. I worked. I served. That was all. I didn’t have my own life. Now I will, what’s wrong with that?”

Steel steps nearer. “That makes no difference. You can’t change the past. It’s too dangerous. I won’t let you.”

“They gave me this,” she says, as if he isn’t there. Perhaps she’s too caught up in the past to see him any more. She looks down at the clock. “I always said to Miss Anne that it was pretty, you see. And when I left, that was what they gave me. More clockwork.”

_So it is the clock_ , Sapphire says from somewhere behind him, speaking to his mind. 

Steel nods.

“And then,” she says, the frail, worn-out woman in the bed, “I knew what to do with it. How to use the clockwork.”

“Something showed you.” The distaste comes through in his voice. “Something used you.”

She shakes her head. It must be true, of course, but she’s gone past acknowledging it. “I wound back the days,” she says, a note of satisfaction in her voice. “I knew I could do it, and I did.”

“Yes,” says Steel. “You did. You changed one small detail. The ripples of that are already threatening the present. You’ve caused enough trouble. Now give me that clock!”

She only holds it tighter. “I’d rather die.”

“You’re going to do that anyway,” says Steel. In minutes, or hours, Sapphire had said before. That might be not be soon enough. He turns his attention back to Sapphire: _How long did you say?_

_Hours, Steel. Two at the most. Minutes, now._

_How many minutes?_

Sapphire steps forward, out of the shadows. The woman doesn’t react. She barely even hears Steel when he shouts at her. She’s half here, half in the past, hard to reach. 

“I think about twenty. The damage to Time is making everything more uncertain here.”

He looks down at the woman. “It’s a narrow enough margin,” he says. “An acceptable risk.”

_Is it?_ Sapphire asks. “Can’t you just take the clock?”

He’s tried that already, of course, but he does so again, bending down, and reaching for it. His fingers pass through air, though she’s still visible. _It’s protecting the clock. I don’t know if it’s protecting her. I don’t think it is. Twenty minutes, Sapphire?_

“Yes, twenty minutes, but I don’t think –”

Steel sits down on the edge of the bed, and leans over. “All right, then. Have your clock. Do what you want. Put things right.”

She sees him properly, then, the woman. She’s shaking. “I will. It’ll be my turn now, you’ll see.”

“Make things fair,” says Steel. “Make them right. That’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it? Turn back time and make sure everything is better this time? Give yourself a life, a future. Why not?”

She nods, and he leans in further, gripping her arm with one hand, anchoring her in the present, even if he can’t do the same for the clock. The other hand he presses over her face, her mouth and nose, until the clock falls out of hands that are now limp, and he can pick it up and dismantle it. It’s nothing now, in pieces tiny cogs and springs, a decorative face and case and arrow-like hands that fall to the floorboards.

“Steel,” Sapphire says. He can feel her disapproval. “ _Steel_.”

He throws the pieces of the clock away and stands. “It was necessary,” he says. “It was growing too powerful. She was barely even here, anyway.”

Sapphire shifts her position, leaning against the wardrobe. _It’s not her I’m thinking about._

Steel flexes his hand and then clenches it into a fist, before looking across at her again. He’s almost amused, almost smiling. “It’s done, Sapphire. It’s over.”

“Are you sure?” she says, with a note of challenge in her voice. “Steel?”

He moves across to stand beside her, and nods. “Yes,” he says, rising to the challenge in return, and meeting her gaze, till she gives a slight smile and looks away. “We should go.”


	38. Lingering Shades (Cerium, Steel)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are ghosts in an old church.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 78: steel & cerium - Spooning & We're all going to die!

“We’re locked in,” said Cerium, without turning away from the stained glass window she was studying, or with any sign of perturbation at her statement. “It doesn’t want to let us out. It’s afraid.”

Steel looked around the church. It was a tiny, thousand year-old Anglo-Saxon church out on the moors, already isolated. He could see most of it from where he was standing, though there were small rooms or alcoves hidden from view, and then there was the tower. “Where is it? What is it going to do?”

“Oh, it wants to destroy us all,” she said, still without any alarm. “Spread the darkness out from here, on and on, swallowing everything, if it could. I don’t know if it can, but it wants to.”

“It could do a lot of damage trying.”

Cerium nodded. “It was a man once, but it’s only an echo of that now.”

“And Time’s using it,” said Steel. He glared around the nave of the church. “I’ll force the door.”

Cerium laughed.

Steel turned back and scowled at her. “What?”

“Well, that won’t be any use,” she said. “It won’t let you do _that_.” And before he could answer, she lifted her gaze again to the stained glass window. Her eyes glowed suddenly, shifting colours like a kaleidoscope. “Look, Steel.”

Steel followed her direction, but though he could see lights in the window and slight changes to the colours, he wasn’t the one who could see stories within it, or make the pictures tell him what they had witnessed here, for all these years. He waited for her to explain, but she didn’t. “Well?” he prompted. “Cerium?”

“All they wanted was to be together,” she said, her eyes slowly changing colour, running from a royal blue through various shades to the black of the lead. She sounded sad. “And now they’re so lonely, so terribly lonely.”

Steel had heard enough stories like it before and gave a snort of impatience – humans thinking that their temporary desires were more important than everything else, or a sufficient excuse for recklessness, selfishness and behaviour that ultimately endangered everyone.

“No,” said Cerium, finally turning away from the window to look at him. Her eyes were their usual pale blue again, and she shivered as she faced him. “Oh, no, not them, poor things. It’s the other one.” She blinked then, as if something had taken her by surprise and she staggered back. 

Steel caught her by the shoulder, steadying her. “The other one?” he said. “Explain.”

Cerium stayed where she was for a moment, recovering herself, and then she shook him off and hurried to the oldest of the tombs, in a tiny chapel of their own. She looked like a ghost herself in her sundress – a white shape in the dark building.

“What other one?” Steel demanded, following her. “Cerium.”

She shook her head, touching the worn stone of the tomb, its inscriptions faded away, its stone effigy almost featureless with the passage of time. “You can’t see him. But they can. He’s always here, always between them.”

Steel looked down at the tomb. He could sense a change in the temperature here, a slight dip that suggested this was at the heart of the problem. “If I get rid of this –”

Cerium put her hand on his arm. “We can let them out – and then when you see him, you can end it. There’s not much left of any of them, not now. Except if he – it – has his way and destroys this place.”

“Let them out?” Steel frowned. It didn’t sound like the logical response, but he knew Cerium had her own way of working and that it could be very effective. He just wished she’d give him more information to work with. “Are you sure?”

She tightened her hold on his arm, and leant towards him, lowering her voice to a whisper. “There isn’t much time, Steel. There are three of them now, but soon there will only be one, much stronger and then –”

“Do what you have to,” he said. He couldn’t see anything here, not specifically, but he was sure he’d glimpsed the edges of shifting shapes in the darkness as she spoke. 

She put her hand to the stone slab, and nodded for him to do the same. “Let them use us, but when it – when he – appears, then –”

_Yes_ , he returned. _I understand._

*

There really wasn’t much remaining of them – mere memories, echoes of emotions, shades. The names no longer mattered. However, for this moment, Steel and Cerium gave two of them shape and movement for the first time in centuries.

She was wearing a red and gold dress, and she had hair that was chestnut brown, not Cerium’s white-blonde, but her features were vague, as if worn out by time, like the stone beside them. She clung to him.

“He lied,” she said to him, pulling at his tunic as she pressed herself against him. “He always lied.”

Steel – the other ghost moving through him – held onto her in return, and kissed her. “I know.”

The two were wrapped up in each other, what was left of them, but the core that was Cerium and Steel felt the arrival of a more threatening presence. It grew around them, an ever-darkening shadow, but it was still weaker than the four of them – Steel, Cerium, the two ghosts it had been holding onto, feeding from.

_Now, Steel_. Cerium was still there.

He didn’t need to be told. It was unable to understand its sudden inability to tear the other two apart, to move against them, and it solidified as it tried again. Its face was nothing but shadows, but it was still wearing chainmail – a soldier from long ago.

Steel gave it no warning. He swung around and gripped it by the throat, holding onto it, forcing it to manifest itself completely, and when it did, he forced it up against the nearest pillar, keeping it there where it could no longer avoid the light from the window.

He felt Cerium shift behind him, and then sudden sparks danced over the apparition, flames catching at it and dispersing it into nothing.

The church fell back into a silence and stillness so profound, he thought it had swallowed all of them.

“There,” said Cerium, seemingly less sensitive to the change. “It’s done.”

Steel turned around and looked at the tomb. “They’re all gone?” It was a redundant question; he knew that. The moment he had broken away from Cerium to attack the shadow soldier, they had been lost. He had the faintest image remaining of a gold and red dress, but he dismissed that from his mind, and then there was nothing.

“Of course,” said Cerium. “We can leave again.”

“And you’re unhurt?” he asked, awkwardly. Cerium had significant powers, but she was in many ways more brittle, more fragile, than some of the others. That couldn’t be taken into account when dealing with an assignment, but now, he wondered.

Cerium gave him an odd, small smile and led the way to the door. “I’m in one piece. Now, can we go outside? I should like to look around before we have to go.”

Then she slipped through the church door without opening it, and Steel followed.


End file.
